Restless is too twee for its own good – and please understand that I say this as someone who has been accused of being too twee themselves, and actually really liked 500 Days of Summer.
The film follows Enoch Brae (former model Henry Hopper, son of Dennis) a young man who has disconnected from the real world since the tragic death of his parents in a car accident. His only friend is the ghost of a WWII Japanese fighter pilot, Hiroshi Takahashi (Ryo Kase), and he spends his days gatecrashing funerals. When he meets Annabel (Mia Wasikowska), a terminally ill teenage girl, and begins to develop feelings for her, things start to change.
Restless is too self-conscious (Enoch’s best friend is a ghost, for goodness sake) to be truly moving. It seems strange that Gus Van Sant, who directed the excellent Milk, has made a film that is so cheesy. Where in his 1991 classic, My Own Private Idaho, Van Sant’s weirdness and existentialism worked, here it is contrived cuteness. With the veneer of an independent film, Restless attempts to appeal to an alternative audience – but it mostly adheres to a conventional formula.
- Enoch (Henry Hopper) and Hiroshi (Rya Kase)
It’s not all terminally awful. Wasikowska turns in a nuanced performance, standing out from the rest of the crowd, and the cinematography can be beautiful. The costume design is also visually appealing, though one wonders how these two teenagers acquired such extensive wardrobes of vintage items from the 1920s-1940s. But even putting aside how listless the plot for Restless is, if you think about it too hard it becomes slightly offensive. The portrayal of terminal illness is too cute to be heart wrenching, and in the end this is just another movie where a manic-pixie-dream-girl is sacrificed for the personal development of a struggling male protagonist.
Annabel (Mia Wasikowska) and Enoch
If you like your romances sweet-natured and unrealistic, your protagonists made up of nothing but idiosyncratic behaviors, and your depictions of terminal illness and grieving rather light-hearted, then you may enjoy Restless. For the majority, however, Restless will leave the audience agitated and impatient for the film to end.
Restless is released in Australia on December 1st
Director: Gus Van Sant
Cast: Henry Hopper, Mia Wasikowska, Ryo Kase, Schuyler Fisk, Lusia Strus
