Movie Review: Restless

I should start by apologising if it seems from these weekly reviews that I only go to the movies to see either horror films or movies about diseases, which I understand I may have given the impression over these last few reviews….well all of them really, but honestly this week was supposed to continue my “Alternative Christmas” theme, by checking out the new Harold and Kumar movie, but thanks to a number of issues which it’s not worth going into, I missed the first showing and was facing over an hour in the freezing cold waiting for the next showing, unless I choose to instead go see something else instead and hence I found myself sitting in a pretty much empty movie theatre watching this latest offering from Indie art house favourite Gus Van Sant, who despite having flirted with mainstream movie making with the likes of “Milk” and “Good Will Hunting” as well as a misguided attempt to remake “Psycho”  has largely remained on the indie side of film making, clearly preferring the artistic freedom which it allows him, somthing especially seen in his dissection of the Columbine High School shooting, as well as daily school life on the whole via numerous view points as seen in “Elephant”.

Now Van Sant brings us the story of Abbie (Mis Wasikowska) a girl who has terminal brain cancer and falls for Enoch (Henry Hopper), a boy who likes to attend funerals and who is also friends with Hiroshi (Ryo Kase) the ghost of a Japanese kamikaze pilot. As the two start to build their relationship through a shared outlook on the world around them, while knowing that the clock is counting down for Abbie.

Okay the key thing to note here is that although Abbie has terminal cancer, it is terminal brain cancer, which essentially leaves her free to continue a relatively normal life, obsessing over birds and the work of Charles Darwin while knowing that the clock is continually ticking down on her life. This might be something which might nark more than a few people off, especially as it’s far from a realistic portrayal of terminal disease and certainly doesn’t aim for the same harsh realities that “50 / 50”. Still despite the bad timing on her and Enoch meeting, she is open about her condition and both are well aware of the end result for their relationship, but it’s not sure how attractive this particular fact it to Enoch especially with his morbid fascination of death which he satisfies largely through his funeral gate crashing habit, which also helps to provide their first meeting.

Still both Abbie and Enoch are wanderers between life and death, to the point were the rest of the world might aswell not exist and it’s upon this path that Enoch’s imaginary friend Hiroshi also wanders, as seemingly Enoch’s only connection to any kind of humanity outside of his aunt, as the two regularly spend their evenings ironically playing Battleships while trying to figure out what Enoch’s relationship with Abbie means.

Sadly the script shows a lot of first timer mistakes meaning that it never really connects with the audience, despite Van Sant clearly going for the same kind of surreal free flow which made “Lost In Translation” so memorable, but thanks to glaring character flaws it often proves hard to connect to these characters, especially when characters are introduced with little or not introduction to only disappear as quickly. The other main flaw here is with the casting of Hopper, who frequently struggles to play Enoch with the right kind of aloofness we’d expect from his character, while any scenes requiring him to express any real emotion, usually providing mixed results, especially as he certainly is clearly not processing the same level of frenzied talent his father (Dennis) processed  and as a result is often left to be supported by the superior Wasikowska who has slowly crafting a name for herself over the last couple of years most memorably in the titular role in “Alice In Wonderland”, yet she still have that unknown edge which works to advantage her as it allows her performance to viewed without any preconceived ideas as what to expect, with her performance here reminiscent to the much missed indie cool years of Scarlett Johansson.

Danny Elfman provides a surprisingly non fantastical score which helps to frame the action happening on screen, while maintaining the indie feel that Van Sant is keen to bring to the film, though the unrelenting soundtrack did prove a little grating especially as at times it felt like I was just watching the film with the radio on, especially as there is barely a shot in this movie which is not accompanied by Elfman’s soundtrack which in the hands of a lesser director could have been used to turn the film into yet another commercial tearjerker, which thankfully it restrains from, even poking fun at such films with a horribly cheesy fake death scene.

What will no doubt tick off most folks though will be the similarities between this film and “Harold and Maude” the similarities of which also immediately sprung to mind when I read the plot outline, but what will no doubt tick the struggling scriptwriters off is how even with such similarities the film still got pushed through, thanks to Jason Lew’s friendship with Bryce Dallas Howard who also produces this film, as does her father Ron Howard and a quick google search will no doubt produce numerous results which accuse this of being another Hollywood Kid’s movie. Still at best it’s a fun distraction at best, especially when Van Sant is clearly just sleepwalking through the direction as this is far from his best work, but more a gentle introduction to his indie films, letting the pretty cinematography by Harris Savides do most of the work, whom Van Sant here once again teams up with and which honestly shows Portland in an interesting new light, than the warped imagery that Chuck Palahniuk has spent the best part of his writing career attaching to it.

Cancer seems to the disease of choice for indie film makers as of late, especially with the release of “50 / 50” which it would seem has overshadowed this film, despite being released first, but then you really only have to look at the plot to know why most folks have chosen to give it a miss, which is a shame as it’s a beautifully surreal movie which oozes Indie cool as Van Sant returns to familiar territory as he teams up with first time screenwriter Jason Lew to bring us the indie film worlds take on terminal illness.