Review: RESTLESS
Gus Van Sant, leading light of 90s New Queer Cinema and director of such experimental art house delights as Paranoid Park, Elephant and Last Days takes a spectacular nosedive into the mawkish sentimentality that plagued his previous ventures into Hollywood with Restless. Basically the plot can be summed up as follows: pretentious, hipster douche bag Egg Nog (Henry Hopper), ok it’s actually Enoch but it sounds like Egg Nog meets insufferably cutesy hipster moron Annabel (Mia Wasikowska) and they bond over their mutual love of leopard print coats and death. He gate crashes funerals. She draws birds in a graveyard whilst wearing a floppy hat. You get the picture. Once you throw in a subplot involving a Japanese ghost pilot that only Egg Nog can see the quirk factor is dialled up so high it begins to leak from the cinema screen, like gas dripping from a car.
The main dramatic tension of the film is derived from the fact that Annabel is terminally ill and has been given 3 months to live by doctors when they meet but the subject is treated horribly. It’s used as nothing more than background music for Annabel and Egg Nog’s pseudo emo courtship dance. It’s actually pretty distasteful to assume that the terminally ill prance about in pixie blond haircuts when the reality is more likely that they lie hooked up to countless monitors with shaved heads. There’s nothing wrong in artists taking a light hearted or fantasy approach to human suffering stories but only if it’s done in a tasteful way. One of the big problems with the film is the screenplay by Jason Lew. Whilst there are some, magical moments littered throughout, like when the couple spend the night in a hidden cabin in the woods on Halloween there are way too many scenes that are either sickly syrupy representations of teenage love or cliché moments of childhood: Egg Nog and his ghost buddy hang out on a rickety train bridge in the Oregon countryside, throwing rocks and running away when a train is spotted. This is fairly identical to the scene in childhood classic Stand By Me or any other film or book that deals with rural American kids.
Though there are some delights to be had in Restless. The always genius Jane Adams puts in a great supporting performance as Egg Nog’s Aunt Mabel, trying desperately to connect with her out of control nephew. Her calm, glacial surface hides plenty of unresolved feelings. Long time Van Sant collaborator, the cinematographer Harris Savides covers the film in his trademark musky finish. The film is beautiful to look at: Portland and the Oregon country are envisioned in stunning autumnal colours.
Mia Wasikowska is a skilled actress and is fast becoming a great one but her talents are wasted on a character that is just plain annoying. The greatest crisis that prevents Restless from connecting with the audience though is Egg Nog himself and the blatantly talentless Henry Hopper. Gus Van Sant has a very typical style of leading man: the arty, American hustler type that in the past has been filled by River Phoenix, Michael Pitt and James Franco and whilst Hopper has the right look for a Gus Van Sant film he falls way short of the acting chops. His performance is permanently set on moody teenager and based on this role he has the dramatic range of an Abercrombie and Fitch model. That being said he does look pretty good in a pair of vintage sunglasses.
