Return Reviews
June 19, 2013
The writer-director is Liza Johnson, an artist, making her first picture and doing it with considerable grace.
May 3, 2012
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
April 29, 2012
Skipping the usual flashbacks-and-cold-sweats cliches, Return has an understated power, even if the story traverses pretty well-trodden ground.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
April 5, 2012
Cardellini holds the restless centre of Liza Johnson's patient, precise drama, which brims with quiet disaffection.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
April 5, 2012
A debut of sober distinction, carried by the seriously good Linda Cardellini as a US Army supply worker whose readjustment to Rust Belt domesticity is touch and go.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
April 5, 2012
As hounourable as its intentions are, the feeling of been there, done that pervades.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
April 4, 2012
Michael Shannon steals the film - when does he not? - as the loving, frustrated husband whose fuse is burning short.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
March 3, 2012
Full Review
| Original Score: B+
February 13, 2012
This quiet, naturalistic film has a classical arc and a lingering sting.
February 10, 2012
Finally someone has written a really good role for Linda Cardellini -- a big, prickly, demanding role that puts her onscreen in literally every scene -- and it's a thrill to watch her operating at full throttle.
February 10, 2012
Sincerity and restraint can be good things in independent movies, but not when you run the risk of putting the audience to sleep...
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
February 9, 2012
With its modest scale and sharp observations, writer-director Liza Johnson's first feature has the quiet impact of a short story.
Original Score: 3.5/5
February 9, 2012
You admire these characters for their considerable resilience while understanding that even the best-intentioned people can break under the stress.
Original Score: 3/5
February 9, 2012
Johnson's feel for the rhythms of reconnection are steady, and she and her fine actors make "Return" one of only a handful of films to honestly address what to many is heartbreaking reality.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
February 9, 2012
Return is unusually attuned to its protagonist's alienation, which is especially painful because its source isn't some horrendous event she witnessed, but the hundreds of annoying aspects of everyday life.
Full Review
| Original Score: B+
February 8, 2012
A bargain-budget bore by writer-director Liza Johnson about a female soldier back from a tour of active duty in Iraq who cannot adjust to life at home.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/4
February 7, 2012
It's what indie filmmaking ought to be.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
February 7, 2012
Firmly in the unassuming indie vein, Return treads lightly and leaves little imprint.
February 5, 2012
One late sequence ends with a twist that steers the film into a questionable bit of plotting that seems almost entirely at odds with the believable naturalism of the remainder of the movie.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4