‘The Return’: First Images Sees ‘The English Patient’ Stars Reunite in a New Mythological Epic!! Check It Out!!

An odyssey is coming to an end this fall. The English Patient stars Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche reunite as mythological lovers Odysseus and Penelope in The Return. Deadline reports that the film will be released in theaters on December 6.

The film stars Fiennes as Odysseus, who returns after a twenty-year absence to his home kingdom of Ithaca. However, much has changed since he departed to fight the Trojan War; his palace and his ever-faithful wife, Penelope, and under siege from a bevy of uncouth suitors, who want her and the kingdom. Those suitors also plan to eliminate Odysseus and Penelope’s son, Telemachus (Charlie Plummer). Odysseus himself is not unchanged, either; the devastating Trojan War and his arduous journey home have left him a shell of the man he once was. He will need to summon all his courage and his cunning to reunite with his family and destroy the men who wish to take them from him. The new images depict the reunion of the duo, as well as a bearded, bow-wielding Fiennes about to prove his archery skills to his rivals. It is the third collaboration between Fiennes and Binoche, whose doomed English Patient romance burned up the screen in 1996; they first shared the screen in Peter Kosminsky‘s 1992 adaptation of Wuthering Heights.

Who Is Odysseus?

these First Look images of Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus in THE RETURN are making me feel some kind of unholy 🧎 Also starring Juliette Binoche, coming only to theaters December 6! #TheReturn pic.twitter.com/mXpqdX0jcq

— Bleecker Street (@bleeckerstfilms) July 18, 2024

Famed for his cunning, Odysseus was the king of Ithaca, a Greek island kingdom. He is called upon to liberate the beautiful Helen, the intended bride of fellow king Menelaus, from the city-state of Troy, to which she had been abducted by Paris. The war raged on for a decade, keeping Odysseus from home and hearth, until Odysseus devised his greatest ruse: the Trojan Horse. The giant wooden structure was seemingly left as a gift to the Trojans by the retreating Greeks, but instead contained the Greeks’ finest warriors; once it was inside the city’s walls, they emerged and sacked the city. Victorious, Odysseus set sail for home, but he had incurred the wrath of Poseidon, the sea god. Thus, his journey was beset by monsters, sorceresses, and disasters, resulting in the short voyage taking another ten years. Odysseus has been portrayed on stage (and later screen) since the days of Homer, who is credited with the epic poems, The Iliad and The Odyssey, that depict his exploits; his notable portrayers include Kirk Douglas, Armand Assante, and Sean Bean.

Uberto Pasolini (Nowhere Special) directed The Return, and co-wrote it with John Collee (Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World) and the late Edward Bond (Blow-Up). Pasolini also produced the film with James Clayton, Roberto Sessa, and Konstantinos Kontovrakis. Executive producers on the film include Fiennes, Giorgos Karnavas, Torsten Poeck, Andrew Karpen, Kent Sanderson, Nicholas Sandler, and Keith Kehoe.