Phil Hoad 

Return – review

This patient, precise drama about a soldier's attempts to reacclimatise to smalltown America brims with quiet disaffection, writes Phil Hoad
  
  

Linda Cardellini and John Slattery in Return
Difficult homecoming … Linda Cardellini and John Slattery in Return Photograph: PR

"A lot of people had it a lot worse than me." That's the refrain of military-supply worker Kelli (Cardellini) as she attempts to reacclimatise to smalltown America. But, unlike the usual Travis Bickle prodigal-soldier template, the problems here lie more with the society Kelli fought for: derelict commercial lots, dead-end jobs, "Oprah assholes" trying to unpick her malaise, Oxycontin-snorting woodsmen, her errant plumber husband (Revolutionary Road's Michael Shannon – doing his best Angry Birds face). Cardellini holds the restless centre of Liza Johnson's patient, precise drama, which brims with quiet disaffection.

 

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