The story of a terminally ill teenage girl who falls for a boy who likes to attend funerals and their encounters with the ghost of a Japanese kamikaze pilot from WWII.
Restless is far from Van Sant’s finest film but it has a sweet innocence that is as unexpected as anything in his recent credits.
Compared to its direct inspiration - Hal Ashby's blackly brilliant Harold And Maude - Restless comes off like an anemic facsimile. After the excellent Milk, this is more like curdled cheese.
Nothing here to make a viewer restless, just bored.
Top class performances and a finely calibrated tone make Restless an unexpectedly moving proposition.
Not keen on kook? Get ready to fidget. But those up for a sweet-natured romance full of idiosyncrasies will undoubtedly forgive the rather flyweight feel.
The palate is crisp and autumnal, none of the emotional beats are played straight, the performances are sweet, and Enoch and Maude wear stupid hats ironically. It’s that kind of film. It’s not for everyone, but for me, it works.
This film is so annoying that as the lights went up, I was to be found hanging from the cinema ceiling by my fingernails, growling.
A minor film.
You can probably guess that Annabel has not been entirely truthful with Enoch and that Restless is not going to end happily but the film has its attractions.
The film ends up succumbing to that specious movie convention that treats terminal cancer as a sort of serenity-enhancing condition that causes sufferers to become adorably eccentric and angelically beatific as they near the end.
The downward curve of Gus Van Sant's career continues with this awful slice of morbid whimsy.
"Listless" might have been a better title for Gus Van Sant's morbidly whimsical story.
Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow from Monday November 7, 2011, until Wednesday November 9, 2011. More info: http://www.glasgowfilm.org/theatre/
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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