RESTLESS – The Review

Pack your rain gear and we’ll take a trip to the Northeast, Seattle to be exact. It’s the home of alternative culture and mecca of most quirkiness. And our guide is one of the most off-beat film directors, Gus Van Zant of MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO fame. For a bit of a change of pace he’s presenting a boy-meets-girl story. They do meet “cute”, but these two young people in RESTLESS are far from the typical movie couple.

We first meet the shy, sullen teenage boy Enoch ( Henry Hopper ) as he “crashes” the memorial service of a complete stranger. He sits quietly in the back and after the service, he returns to the big, gloomy house he shares with his aunt ( Jane Adams ). His only friend is the ghost of a WWII kamikaze pilot, Hiroshi ( Ryo Kase ), that only Enoch can see. At the next service Enoch catches the eye of a teenage girl, Annabel ( Mia Wasikowska ). She too has crashed the service and explains that she works at a nearby hospital. She soon returns to the home she shares with her boozy mother and very protective older sister ( Schuyler Fisk ). When she takes Annabel to the hospital we find that she doesn’t work there, but is a frequent patient. A new test reveals that a cancerous growth on the brain is spreading and Annabel has only three months to live. At the next service that Enoch attends, it seems his luck has run out- the cemetery director recognizes him from the two recent services. Before Enoch is ejected Annabelle steps in and covers for him. The pair soon begin a friendship and, after Annabel shares the news of her condition, they begin to fall in love. The stoic Enoch finally lets down his defences and shares his family tragedy. These two free spirits have found each other, but what will happen as they near her final days?

For fans of 70’s cinema the comparisons to Hal Ashby’s classic HAROLD AND MAUDE are too great to ignore. Like Bud Cort’s Harold, Enoch is somber, quiet and obsessed with death although he doesn’t stage elaborate mock suicides as in the former film. Hopper reminds one of Cort in many scenes along with his father Dennis, his dad’s contemporary James Dean and a younger James Franco. Instead of the sprightly septenagerian Ruth Gordon as Maude RESTLESS has a sprightly terminally ill pixie in Wasikowska. With her short cropped blonde hair she’s close to the great movie gamine Audrey Hepburn and free spirits Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams. This is a very different side of Wasikowska from her other film roles and solidifies her status as a young actress ro watch. These two do their best with a script that’s cloyingly precious most of the time. The injection of a whimsical invisible pal detracts from the tenderness of the couple’s growing affection for each other. I guess a ghost pilot’s better than a tall invisible rabbit ( sorry Pooka fans). I must single out Ms Fisk for her portrait of an older sister who’s had to step up and be the head of the family. She projects a no-nonsense tough, protective exterior while her heart is breaking over the prospect of losing her sibling. The slow pacing, turgid soundtrack songs, and dark, dreary cinematography don’t service the actors properly. If you can handle some of the forced whimsy, RESTLESS may be worth your time. But the definitive love amongst death comedy is that gem from over 40 years ago.

Overall Rating: Two and a Half Out of Five Stars