Telling the story of a young mother who has just returned from a tour of duty, Liza Johnson's Return dives into the mental and emotional strain that comes with rejoining a society that has changed drastically since your last visit.
Linda Cardellini stars as Kelli, our central subject. Excited to return to her old life in the small town she has always known, Kelli can't help but feel that something is off. With no one able to fully understand the horrors that she experienced overseas, she bottles up her emotions, silently watching as the world she thought she knew comes crashing to the ground.
While many war films appear to have an ulterior motive laden under the central story arc, Return tends to play things safe--too safe. More of a character study than anything else, Cardellini proves to be the best thing about this uneventful, and rather subdue picture. It isn't that the story was bad, I just felt that little actually happened.
A late sequence takes Kelli's struggle to new heights, ultimately pointing it into a questionable direction. It wasn't that the course of action was out of line, but it did feel out of place. In the end several plot points are left unanswered as Johnson finds herself knee deep in story development without a hand for which to hold onto. If anything Return proves that it is difficult to connect with a character you feel you hardly know.
