Premiered at TIFF in 2024, The Return, here called Itaka: The Return, to make more clear this is indeed about The Odyssey, that one from Homer.

Directed by Uberto Pasolini (uncle of cinema maestro Luchino Visconti and mostly know for producing the 1997 Peter Cattaneo directed cult comedy The Full Monty), The Return is a retelling of the last chapters of the epic, with Odysseus washing up naked to Itaka, the island he once ruled before getting involved in the Trojan War, only for it see having been overtaken by arrogant sultors to the queen Penelope, whom she keeps rejecting, buying time with the loom scheme, but their son, Telemachus is also facing death as the sultors see him as a treat to their ambitions.

So Odysseus, posing as a vagrant, visits the city, and despite being traumatized by the horrors of the war, he eventually rises up to the challenge in his characteristically crafty fashion.

We know the story. This retelling opts to focus on the “Journey To Ithaka Arc” and eskew any mythology, doing away with gods, magic and monsters to center of the familial and human drama of a father coming home to see it defaced by strangers, a king his kingdom brought to ruin, his relationships with the son he never saw before already compromised, and his reluttance to shed blood (even for justice) as we focus on him suffering basically from PTSD.

This is where i say there’s a “small” issue that ultimately undercuts the whole idea… but actually no, the more realistic-gritty tone works without defacing or changing the events chosen to be retold this way, even if the pacing suffers a bit it sticks to the canon, the acting by Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche in particular are terrific, making for absorbing drama.