★★★½ The Return is worth watching for Fiennes and Binoche

The pair reunite for the first time since the 1996 Oscar winner The English Patient, in this thoughtful take on Homer’s The Odyssey.

The Return, directed by Uberto Pasolini, with Ralph Fiennes (Odysseus), Juliette Binoche (Penelope), Charlie Plummer (Telemachus), Marwan Kenzari (Antinous), Claudio Santamaria (Eumaeus).

The Return (M)
94 minutes
In cinemas

★★★½

The Return, which reunites Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes for the first time since the 1996 Oscar winner The English Patient, is a thoughtful take on Homer’s The Odyssey.

The focus is on the second half of the epic poem, when Odysseus (Fiennes) returns home to the Greek island of Ithaca two decades after setting off to fight the Trojan War.

During that time, his wife Penelope (Binoche), has endured her own siege: that of the loutish suitors who, believing Odysseus to be dead, want to marry her and become the new king.

This is a difficult part of the poem to adapt. The violence in it makes Quentin Tarantino’s movies look PG.

It will be interesting to see how Christopher Nolan approaches it in his next film, The Odyssey, starring Matt Damon.

In this adaptation, the screenwriters are Scottish-Australian doctor, novelist and scriptwriter John Collee, Oscar nominated for Peter Weir’s Master and Commander (2003), British playwright and poet Edward Bond, who died in 2024, and the director, Italian investment banker turned filmmaker Uberto Pasolini, who produced the 1987 British hit The Full Monty.

Their most important innovation is to take the gods out of the picture.

No-one is doing anything because Athena, or any other god, is orchestrating events from Mount Olympus.

What happens is raw human drama. In this sense it reminds me of David Malouf’s outstanding 2009 novel Ransom, which expands on one all-too-human moment in The Iliad.

Odysseus does not consider himself a hero. He may have returned home but he has done so alone.

He is haunted by the deaths of the men he led and of the slaughter of the Trojans. “We burned it to the ground,’’ he says of Troy, “and drowned the flames in blood.”

Some of his men were turned into pigs. While the sorceress Circe is not named, Odysseus’s now-grown son, Telemachus (Charlie Plummer), hears gossip about his father’s long relationship with her. Fiennes does this well.

The look in his eyes, as he remembers what he did, and when he has to do once more as he takes on the suitors, led by the calculating Antinous (Marwan Kenzari), is one of regret.

Odysseus, dressed in rags, tells people he’s an “old soldier” who fought at Troy alongside the king. When his son asks his name, he replies, in a clever nod to the original, “I’m nobody”.

When he and Penelope meet, it is in a darkened room. So it’s the lack of light, and the passage of time, which lead her not to recognise her husband. It’s the best scene in the movie.

“Why do men go to war? Why do they burn houses? Why do they rape? Why do they murder women and children?’’ she asks him.

“Did my husband rape? Did he murder women and children?”

Binoche captures the powerlessness of Penelope. She has no power when her husband is away and none when he returns. “Has all this waiting been for nothing?’’ she asks herself.

This film is worth watching for the performances of Fiennes and Binoche and for its take on an ancient poem that just keeps on giving.

As for how it handles the climactic bloodbath, all I’ll do is quote the childhood nurse who recognises Odysseus. “My boy’s back. Now you can kill them all.”

★★★½

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Flow (PG)
85 minutes
In cinemas
★★★½

Suspicion versus trust. Instinct versus experience. Self versus community. The other versus the familiar.

These are some of the themes of Flow, a beautifully filmed, dialogue-free drama that was named best animated feature at the 2025 Academy Awards.

The setting is a post-human world. The seas are rising, subsuming all before them.

The main character is a dark grey cat. The moment the water takes all before it, the cat is perched on the head of a mountainous feline statue. It is visually spectacular, as is the rest of the film.

The cat leaps on to a passing boat that is under the command of a capybara, the world’s largest rodent. Soon other animals board this ark as the biblical tide continues to rise: a playful labrador, a materialistic lemur and an imperious secretary bird.

The director, cinematographer and editor is Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis, whose previous animated film was Away (2019). He also composed the score, alongside Rihards Zalupe.

Zilbalodis shows the animals as they are in real life, especially the contemplative cat and the noble labrador. The moment the cat coughs up a fur ball in front of the lemur is priceless. The look on each of their faces is perfect.

The flow of the water is an unstoppable force. It’s nature breaking the banks. There is another flow, however, that the animals must decide whether to go with or against. It’s the flow of tribe, of authority, of the norm.

The secretary bird can follow what the flock leader dictates or rebel to protect his new friends, who are outsiders, even if that risks being ostrichcised (forgive me).

The same applies to the labrador and the lemur, each of whom has to think outside the pack mentality. When survival is at stake, is it us and them or all of us? Is it me first or co-operate? Is it selfishness or empathy?

This film, with its touches of magical realism, would be perfect to watch with children or grandchildren. It is beautiful to look at, has humorous touches, and the absence of dialogue opens a door to discuss what’s happening as it happens. It also opens doors to moral and ethical questions that are worth discussing with the generations to come.