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There’s a curious thing about homecomings. They aren’t quite what we imagine them to be, are they? A man sets out, faces the tempests of the world, and dreams of the day he will step across the threshold of home, of how the door will creak the same way it always did, how the air will carry the scent of things long cherished. But the truth—the unbearable truth—is that a house never remains as we left it, just as the man who returns to it is no longer the man who departed. Homer clearly understood this when he spun the tale of Odysseus, the wayward traveller on the longest of journeys—for to return is a greater dread than to part, and this is the echo that reverberates in every story of the Odyssey, no matter how often it is retold. Uberto Pasolini’s The Return takes this truth and strips it bare, offering us a version of Odysseus that feels less like the cunning warrior we’ve come to admire and more like a man whose shoulders sag beneath the weight of his own legend.
Ralph Fiennes gives us an Odysseus who is tired beyond words, a man who has wandered not just across the seas but through the quiet, gnawing corridors of his own regret. Watching him, I couldn’t help but think of those archers who step onto the range after years away, their hands once sure now trembling slightly, their eyes searching for the target with a hesitation that never used to be there. Fiennes’ Odysseus doesn’t stride into Ithaca with the confidence of a hero returning to claim his rightful place; he walks as if unsure whether he belongs there at all. It’s an Odysseus for a different age—an age where triumph feels less like a victory and more like a bittersweet compromise.
And perhaps that’s the crux of it. Pasolini’s Ithaca is not the vibrant island of feasting and song, but a place shrouded in the quiet erosion of time. Penelope, played with restrained grace by Juliette Binoche, no longer waits in the grand, mythical sense. She endures. There’s no grand gesture in her longing, no overt displays of faithfulness. She simply exists within the space left by Odysseus’ absence, much like an archer who stands at the line long after the arrows have been loosed, staring at the empty target and wondering if the shot was ever theirs to make in the first place. Binoche’s Penelope is all too human, bearing the weight of years in the set of her shoulders and the quiet way she watches Odysseus with something more akin to wariness than relief.
I found myself thinking back to another telling of this tale, one that felt closer to the bowstring’s twang and the salt-laden air of Homer’s original. Simon Armitage’s 2004 BBC Radio 4 adaptation of The Odyssey was something else entirely—a lush, poetic retelling that crackled through the airwaves with a vibrancy that made you feel as if you were standing at the prow of Odysseus’ ship, staring out into the endless blue. In some poetic way, Tim McInnerny’s Odysseus isn’t just a man; he’s something more—an undeniable presence, a voice that bears the weight of fought battles, lost loves, and an unwavering will of returning home. Amanda Redman’s Penelope also displayed something supernatural, a kind of quiet resilience, but one in which I felt an unmistakable fire of awareness that love is not just about waiting but also about fighting for what is left.
The magic of Armitage’s adaptation was in its ability to hold onto the myth while grounding it in something deeply human. The gods were there, whispering their mischief into Odysseus’ ear, the sea still heaved with monsters lurking beneath the surface, and yet, amid all the grandeur, the heart of the story remained painfully familiar. It understood that the act of returning is never as simple as stepping through a door; it’s a slow, arduous process of reconciliation—with oneself, with the past, with those who stayed behind. Listening to it, I felt that familiar tug every archer knows—the longing for the perfect shot, the knowledge that perfection is as elusive as Ithaca itself.
Pasolini’s film, by contrast, strips the epic down to bare bones. Gone are the gods, the grand speeches, the larger-than-life sense of destiny. What we are left with is something quieter, more introspective, a study of weariness rather than triumph. There are moments of brilliance, of course—Fiennes’ face, lined and weary, speaks volumes without words; Binoche’s watchful silence carries a weight that words would only cheapen. But it is, ultimately, a story of absence rather than presence, of what is lost rather than what is reclaimed.
I couldn’t help but feel that in removing the myth, something vital was lost. It’s the myth, after all, that gives Odysseus his shape, that makes him more than just a man with a past. Strip that away, and what remains is almost too ordinary, too resigned. And yet, perhaps this is what Pasolini is talking about—that sometimes these wonderful stories we often tell ourselves about return are in essence something no greater, perhaps not at all beyond the daily grind of returns—the quiet and saddeningly commonplace of our lives. It is a sobering thought, which does not give peace of mind to those of us who still believe in the power of a taut string, the whisper of an arrow released towards a distant mark.
For archers, there is something almost sacred in the act of aiming, of finding that stillness amid the chaos. It’s a lesson Odysseus knew well, whether facing down suitors or monsters in the deep. Armitage’s version captured that sense of focus, of relentless pursuit, in a way that resonated deeply with anyone who has ever stood on the range and felt the world narrow to a single point. Pasolini’s The Return, for all its artistry, feels less like a shot well-aimed and more like an arrow that never quite finds its mark. It drifts, searching, perhaps too much so.
And yet, there is beauty in it—beauty in the way it lingers on the faces of those left behind, beauty in the quiet moments that speak louder than any grand proclamation. Perhaps, in the end, it isn’t about whether it stands up to Homer’s epic or Armitage’s lyrical take. Perhaps it’s simply about the act of returning itself—the messy, painful, and sometimes anticlimactic journey back to a place that may no longer exist as we remember it.
What The Return offers, then, is a meditation on that journey, stripped of illusions, stripped of grandeur. It’s an Odysseus for those who know that homecomings are never simple, for those who have loosed their arrows and missed, for those who understand that some journeys never truly end. And yet, for all its quiet brilliance, I find myself reaching instead for the sound of McInnerny’s voice, for the myth that reminds us why we aim in the first place.
Perhaps that’s the real lesson of Odysseus—not just the return, but the readiness to take up the bow again, to stand, to aim, to believe that home—whatever shape it takes—is always worth striving for.