Le Retour

This film isn't unnecessarily emotional, and instead the actors try to keep it relatively calm, which they actually manage to do quite nicely. Jane Fonda and Jon Voight are just great and they work perfectly together, but the others also play their relevant roles. One of the best war films without war scenes I've ever seen. (12/02/2018)

It’s well known that in the 70s Hal Ashby was making great films like a treadmill, but I still can't help wondering how beautiful this intimate drama with a clear message and more or less typical characters of his was to watch. It must be thanks to the beautiful sixties, packed with unparalleled music (performed by Ashby in a uncensored form), real emotions and lost illusions about love and personal freedom. This is of course due to the perfect cast, led by a slightly schizophrenic veteran Jon Voight showing the more sensitive, contained side of his rich talent. And also due to Ashby himself, who was able to speak behind the camera in that area of turbulent human destinies as skilfully and, above all, convincingly as perhaps no one else. I'm sticking with 4 stars solely because absolutely nothing happens in the film that wasn't expected or even inevitable from the beginning. 80% (17/03/2014)

Giving a film with such a serious topic, like the return of war veterans to civilian life, less than 4 stars may sound sacrilegious, but despite the decent cast and the subject matter, the film did not evoke any strong emotions in me for a long time. The first hour carries on in an unremarkable manner, and if I were to compare Ashby's film, let's say with Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July, the latter would easily come out as the winner. The film does gain some internal tension and becomes slightly more interesting starting from the key sex scene between the main characters, but once again, it lacks a key emotional scene at the end that would permanently etch the film in one's memory. In the long line of American films on a similar theme, Coming Home represents only a better average from my perspective. Overall impression: 65%. (04/07/2010)