Director: Gus Van Sant
Writer: Jason Lew
Starring: Henry Hopper, Mia
Wasikowska, Ryo Kase, Schuyler Fisk
“Restless” starts out in a promising
manner. Henry Hopper, son of Dennis, is a promising new star who engages the
audience with his outcast loner who likes to crash funerals. The young man is
obsessed with death for reasons that will be revealed later in the film. At one
funeral he meets a girl named Annabelle, played by Mia Wasikowska of “Alice in
Wonderland” fame. They immediately relate to each other’s atypical views on
life.
Soon after they befriend
each other she reveals that she has cancer. Soon after that she learns she has
only three months to live. It is in dealing with Annabelle’s cancer where the
movie doesn’t ring true. The romance between these two unique people is
charming enough. The illness she suffers, however, is a movie illness that
allows her to be fresh and ready to take on the world when she needs to be and
only rears its ugly head when her boy toy needs some perspective. What’s even
less realistic is that really only happens once during the course of their
short relationship.
I wanted to enjoy this
picture. It’s always fun to see fresh characters on the screen. I don’t
understand, however, how so many screenwriters are so inexperienced with
serious illnesses that they don’t realize they aren’t opportunities for a fresh
take on life. Sure, it’s nice to believe that if you were to discover that you
had only a limited time on this mortal coil you might capitalize on your
hardship by living life like you never have before. But the reality is that you
will live life like you never have before, and it will involve details that are
more about death than life. The living that is done in the final days of a
serious illness is not like you see in the movies. It involves breathing and
bowel movements as major accomplishments, not finding that perfect person that
you just couldn’t seem to find when you were distracted by life.
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