Confused ‘Restless’ is a Beautiful Mess

In crafting “The Saddest Movie Ever Made,” there are several criteria a screenwriter must meet. In theory, “Restless” checks off every one of them: death-obsessed boy with departed parents; love interest who has terminal cancer; and terse dialogue like “love means never having to say you’re sorry.” However, in practice, Gus Van Sant’s newest film couples an inherently depressing set-up with quaint cinematography, quirky music, and antiquated costuming that instead makes “Restless” into “The Most Cognitively Dissonant Movie Ever Made.”

The film follows the psyche of Enoch Brae (Henry Hopper) as he lives in the wake of his parents’ untimely deaths. He attends random memorial services dressed as a sort of 19th-century poet, complete with coattails and a stiff, thick dress shirt. He has dropped out of school and chosen instead to throw rocks at passing trains or to play Battleship with his ghost friend/schizophrenic vision Hiroshi (Ryo Kase). Hopper plays Enoch as a defeated Holden Caulfield, the sort of boy who spites his aunt after his parents die en route to seeing her receive an award, and generally spurns a faithless world.

Enter boyish, brain-cancered Annabel Cotton (Mia Wasikowska), who gives no emotional indication that she has three months left to live. She discusses her upcoming death as simply as she discusses her obsession with Charles Darwin and water birds, and the two proceed to fence, trick-or-treat, climb trees, and traipse around graveyards in a myriad of vintage outfits appropriate to “The Great Gatsby.”

To be fair, the film itself is reliably beautiful, helped along by the attractiveness of the two main leads and their overstated presence. When the camera is not focused on Enoch or Annabel, it is making some commentary about the fleeting nature of life. The graveyards, forests, and suburban landscape all add to the idea of wanderlust and of searching for something in life that Annabel will soon not have in death. Admittedly, when the duo lies on asphalt, outlined by chalk as in a taped-off police scene, it is near impossible not to feel wistfully that the premature parting of two such aesthetically-pleasing people is a crime.

However, with a set-up crafted to tug heart-strings, it’s bizarre that there are almost no displays of sadness in “Restless.” Enoch desecrates his parents’ tomb out of anger at abandonment, accosts Annabel’s doctor, and often stomps out of his house petulantly, yet otherwise his face is more often than not completely blank. Annabel is a worse offender in this regard; she evinces the inexplicable sagacity of a much more mature personality in accepting her death. Enoch’s Japanese ghost Hiroshi, who serves as an embodiment of Enoch’s inner thought process, makes for effective comic relief—on handshakes versus bows, he opines “you white people always have to grab everything.” But when he is added to the production’s already overly cheery elements, the film takes on a bizarrely happy tone.

Further muddling the movie is Danny Elfman’s soundtrack, which feels completely out of place, as one might expect given the composer’s quirky modus operandi. The perky xylophone that pervades “Restless” seems as inappropriate as Enoch’s funeral-crashing. Worse still, many of the film’s poignant scenes that could potentially have served as counterweights to the movie’s happier moments are quickly swept aside by orchestral outbursts of rage or joy more suitable to a Broadway musical.

Ultimately, the combination of a tragic script, actors who are more convincing when happy than sad, a gorgeous cinematographic experience, and a disturbing insinuation that terminal illness can serve as the patron saint of any romance leaves viewers with a film as confused as its own leads. The most disappointing aspect of all, however, is that if Annabel did not have an illness, and she and Enoch were merely obsessed with death, the film would have been oddly brilliant. But instead, the movie’s meandering mood and tone undermine its authenticity and prevent “Restless” from being the commentary on life, death, and youth it wishes to be.

—Staff writer Christine A. Hurd can be reached at churd@college.harvard.edu.