The Return is kind of a big ask for a mass audience. It’s slow, it has issues with motivation and pacing, and an entire scene devoted to stringing a bow. But it’s unique devotion to its source material is impressive… it took genuine confidence and assurance to lay out this classic feast and consume is slowly.

This nearly two hour film is the final couple books (chapters?) of Homer’s The Odyssey. After ten years of getting super lost, Odysseus washes up on his home island only to find a mob of suitors lurking around his wife and queen. But Odysseus has seen some shit and he takes a healthy amount of time to reveal himself and deal with these creeps.

Far be it from me to question the events of a historic poem almost three thousand years old, but maybe stretching those last few sections into two hours was a big ask. Especially for an audience that might not be super familiar with The Iliad and The Odyssey in the first place. But the filmmakers said “screw it” and filmed the damn thing anyway… hope you remember your Greek mythology!

And, hey, they do a good – if butt-numbing – job retelling this portion of the poem. I don’t remember all the details but it seems to follow my cloudy memory. And, even if it’s a little slow, I adored the gumption to film it the way they did. They could have skipped to the end but they stuck to their guns.

You see, I bet in any normal filmmaker’s take on The Odyssey, they’d probably focus on the monsters, the witches, and the whirlpools and then yada yada yada the final stretch. Probably either pull a Scouring of the Shire and cut it completely or at least cram it into the final fifteen minutes. This flick said no thanks… we’re skipping the exciting war and adventure stuff and focusing on, well, the return.

And I was trifle impatient with the film’s choices… some of which adhere to the poem’s logic that doesn’t make sense in a modern film. But I respect it and found the final act brutally enjoyable. This is a slow, dour, and confident film that may not win over action junkies… unless the action they love is the tail end of a three thousand year old poem.

Score: 82