Home may not be where the heart is

RETURN (2011)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

When a soldier returns from war, it can be a long haul before normalcy returns. The question is what is Kelli (Linda Cardellini), a National Guard reservist, going to do in a small Ohio town where the only excitement is drinking at the local bar with the girlfriends? Can normalcy ever truly return?

"Return" is one of several recent films about the consequences of war on the spiritual mind, particularly the difficulty of adjusting to being home. Kelli has a husband named Mike (Michael Shannon), a struggling plumber, and two daughters, one of whom is old enough to know when family life is tense. Kelli is back from the war but she can't stand her long-term job where she assembles aluminum air ducts, and promptly quits. Mike is upset by Kelli's indifference to everything, including having a job, but she can't find much comfort beyond being lazy and laying on the couch. When she isn't sleeping till noon, she is drinking. When Kelli isn't doing either, she gets wind of Mike's infidelities. Then there is the support group counselor who can't possibly fathom Kelli's war experiences.

"Return" may sound like a depressing film but it is not - it is a slow-moving character study of a woman's search for something, some reminder of a home life prior to deployment. It appears that maybe she sees the reality of her home life since the war has pummeled her sensibilities (and she claims others had it worse) - she is more of an outsider and an observer in her family. When Mike and the kids watch TV, she can't get them to listen to her suggestion of painting the living room a different color. The fact that Mike can't see she is suffering, perhaps internally, suggests that he has no idea how to cope with her beyond a superficial "spouse group" pamphlet.

Linda Cardellini rules the screen with the most nuanced performance of her career, thus far. When she shows Kelli sleeping on the floor next to her kids, we want to hug her. When she sneaks out of a bathroom window at the bar, we feel that she can't find comfort in anything, or just hates enclosed environments. Cardellini brilliantly shows vulnerability and an air of authority and raw anger, particularly in two scenes - the most striking is when she confronts Mike's new flame. Kelli is ready to pounce on this woman and we feel it hit our raw nerves but it is more explosive for how little anger actually seeps out. Cardellini conveys just as much through silence and body language as she does with words - this is a striking performance that should have received Oscar talk.

Most of "Return" has been seen before but never as evocatively or as powerfully as this film. Even seemingly cliched moments with an expected payoff, such as Kelli and Mike's supposed reconciliation, are handled with a slightly different outcome. Kudos must go to Cardellini, a character actress on the rise, Michael Shannon's minimalist tonal shifts (playing one of the nicest people he has ever played on screen), and a spry turn by John Slattery as a Vietnam Vet who knows what Kelli is going through. Writer-director Liza Johnson has astutely dealt with a female soldier's point-of-view and leaves her and us with no easy resolutions. By the end of the film, we're not sure if Kelli will ever fully recover - we just hope that she does.