Return in 240 Words or Less

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For a movie as low-key as Return is, it seems strange I was holding my breath so much. I was just so nervous it might topple into the standard melodrama of the situation as we've seen it played out so many times before (vet comes home from service, freaks out) that I couldn't help myself. But the film doesn't topple - it pushes aside the cliches gently, but confidently.

Similarly Linda Cardellini gives an unshowy performance, presenting a capable woman adrift in a sea of semi-recognizable faces that seem as if they're coming at her from a distant sorta hazy past, and not quite standing in front of her here and now. It's as if she's found herself in an alternate universe, and only she can see how it's not quite right anymore. We watch as Cardellini shuffles and reshuffles, trying to shake out the right shape - she stares at her friends, her husband (Michael Shannon ceding the PTSD to somebody else for a change, playing a light dude who even smiles some), and even her children with unease.

Instinctively you can't help but like Cardellini, who never comes across as anything less than genuine, but she never lets this woman off the hook - she's difficult, frustrating, and even weak. But with so little said and even more deflected, we come to see exactly who she is anyway.