Like Jonathan Levine’s 50/50 also shown at the 2011 London Film Festival, Restless deals with a young person battling cancer. Interestingly both films have a person in common, Bryce Dallas Howard, who acted in 50/50 playing the wayward girlfriend who can’t cope when her boyfriend is diagnosed with a malignant tumour. Dallas Howard is a producer on Restless and brought the project to director Gus Van Sant, cinematic chronicler of America’s beautiful young losers.
Restless Has a Touch of Magic Realism
Enoch (Henry Hopper) likes to gatecrash funerals. Turning up at services for complete strangers in an outfit resembling one part Victorian gentleman and another part emo rock star Enoch has a morbid fascination with death. At the memorial service for a young man who died of cancer Enoch meets Annabel (Mia Wasikowska) who quickly figures out he has no place being there. Rather than being upset she befriends this strange withdrawn misfit and the two start to see each other outside of the funeral circuit.
Annabel is dying from a brain tumour. Enoch has his own problems. Orpaned in a car crash, he was comatose when his parents were buried. Excluded from school, his only friend is the ghost of a WWII kamikaze pilot called Hiroshi (Ryo Kase). That’s right, a ghost. We’re in magic realist territory here. Smitten by Annabel, Enoch struggles to deal with her dying, while oddly she seems calm and acceptant.
Restless`is Affecting
Van Sant and screenwriter Jason Lew avoid showing the physical disintegration that is part of dying from a terminal illness. Annabel remains pale and lovely even as her time draws near. She is what film critic Nathan Rabin termed the ‘manic pixie dream girl,’ a type of character who is there to teach a sensitive young man to embrace life and all its possibilities.
Yet if all this seems twee and perhaps insulting to anybody who may have witnessed a loved one being destroyed by a terminal illness, go along with it. Van Sant knows exactly how to direct this kind of material. Restless is typical of his work; Autumnal colours, a plaintive soundtrack, and a tenderness towards the young few directors possess. Lew’s screenplay is very funny and Van Sant proved with Good Will Hunting (1997) he can bring a tremendous amount to a project when he is brought in as a director for hire.
Restless is affecting. Henry Hopper looks so much like his father circa Rebel Without a Cause (1955) it brings an added sadness to his performance. Mia Wasikowska is a terrific actress, much better in contemporary fare like this and HBO’s In Treatment (2008-11) than the bonnets and corsets roles ethereal actresses invitably get shoved into. It may be overly comforting about death, but Restless is undeniably moving.
3/5
- Restless
- Starring Henry Hopper, Mia Wasikowska
- Written by Jason Lew
- Directed by Gus Van Sant
- Running time 91 mins
- Year 2011
Kevin Sturton - Kevin is a graduate of the 2005 Post-Grad course in Film Journalism run by the BFI and writes mainly about film.
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