It was the world premiere night in the Directors’ Fortnight section for Liza Johnson and her debut feature film, Return. Starring Michel Shannon in a minor supporting role and focusing on Linda Cardellini in what could be her ticket to a more interesting array of indie parts, this isn’t a major mood-swinging piece and comparatively its a tame when compared to the dozen others and is obviously the point — Johnson spins this without any cliches, something that appeared co-joined to the hip in this dramatic sub-genre.
Home from her deployment, Cardellini’s mother/wife character just doesn’t fit anymore, she doesn’t know why but what she does know is that others had it worse — you get a sense that Return was researched and elements were drawn into the possible backstory of the character, so this isn’t dependent on addiction-like stupors to fill the character description, but rather, visuals of the environment, a rural, mainland America coats and underlines her aimlessness. Here is world premiere night presentation and post-screening footage.
"Ron and I wanted to make a film that looked at what it means to be an outsider and we wanted to explore what it takes to reach out to someone whose life is very removed from your own."
