Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche reunited over a quarter-century after they starred together in the Oscar-winning The English Patient to star in the classical drama The Return, which had a world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival on Saturday night.
While Fiennes was not on hand at TIFF owing to acting duties back in Britain, Binoche paid tribute to her co-star as she insisted they share similar qualities, despite coming from different countries and backgrounds.
“I always love working with him (Fiennes), because there’s so much rhythm, around the weight of words, the weight of silence and still is. It’s very genuine,” Binoche told the Roy Thomson Hall audience after receiving a short, yet brisk standing ovation when The Return concluded.
“And I feel very much like, even though we’re husband and wife in this film, we’re like brother and sister. We’re very much alike, even though we live in different countries, in different languages and a different sex and different education,” Binoche, a native of France, said of Fiennes, who is from the U.K.
Ahead of Toronto, Bleecker Street picked up the North American rights to The Return, a retelling of Homer’s Odyssey that has Fiennes playing King Odysseus, haggard and unrecognizable since leaving to fight in the Trojan War. His beloved wife Penelope (Binoche) is imprisoned in her own home, hounded to choose a new husband, a new king.
Their son Telemachus, played by Charlie Plummer, has lost faith in his father and faces death at the hands of the suitors who see him as an obstacle in their relentless pursuit of Penelope and the kingdom.
Pasolini, director of Nowhere Special and producer of The Full Monty, helmed the feature from a script he co-wrote with Edward Bond and John Collee.
In 1997, Binoche took home the Silver Bear for best actress for her work in Anthony Minghella’s The English Patient. The adaptation of the Michael Ondaatje novel portrayed a French-Canadian nurse (Binoche) who, in an Italian monastery, cares for a severely burned Englishman who cannot recall his name, and is played by Fiennes.
Binoche told the post-screening Q&A that, while watching The Return, she realized Fiennes was wounded in The English Patient and their latest collaboration. “The only difference is he was my patient over 20 years ago, and now I had to be patient to have him back,” she observed.
At the Oscars, The English Patient went on to win nine of its 12 Academy Award nominations, including best picture, best supporting actress for Binoche and best director for Minghella.
The Return, an Italy-Greece-U.K.-France co-production, has Pasolini and James Clayton producing for Red Wave Films, Roberto Sessa for Picomedia with Rai Cinema, Giorgos Karnavas and Konstantinos Kontovravkis producing for Heretic and Stéphane Moatti, Romain Le Grand, Vivien Aslanian and Marco Pacchioni for Kabo Films and Marvelous Production.
Andrew Karpen and Kent Sanderson executive produce for Bleecker Street.