The Return (2024) on Netflix
R20241h 56mAdventureDramaHistory
Odysseus washes ashore on Ithaca after twenty years away, naked and unrecognizable. His wife Penelope is pressed to choose a suitor, and their son Telemachus refuses Antinous's request.
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- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb6.3/1018,187 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes78%
Trailer
Plot summary
Odysseus comes ashore on Ithaca, his home island, after twenty years away at the Trojan War and many trials. He is naked and unrecognizable. The slaves Eumaeus and Yias find him and care for him. He is troubled by what he has been through, and he learns that his kingdom has declined. His wife Penelope faces pressure to find a suitor, because many believe her husband is dead. Their son Telemachus refuses when the nobleman Antinous tries to convince him to press his mother into marriage, distrusting Antinous and the Suitors. Penelope weaves a burial shroud for her elderly father-in-law.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Return (2024)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Uberto Pasolini had been considering adapting Homer's Odyssey for 30 years, and in 2011 asked Ralph Fiennes to both act in and direct the film; Fiennes said he could not do both, and in 2022 asked Pasolini to direct, which Pasolini accepted only after Fiennes pushed him.
- In April 2003, Javier Bardem was reported to be in talks to play Odysseus, but producers were unable to begin principal photography that May.
- The director Uberto Pasolini asked Ralph Fiennes who should play Penelope in The Return, and Fiennes's answer was "Juliette [Binoche], of course".
- Ralph Fiennes did five months of physical training to build the wiry, muscular body Uberto Pasolini wanted for Odysseus, then two and a half months of running and weight training to cut his body fat; the aim was a look like "a bit of old rope" rather than a "gym body".
- The Return, Uberto Pasolini's adaptation of the second half of Homer's Odyssey, cost $20 million to film, compared to the $250 million spent on Christopher Nolan's 2026 The Odyssey.
