A young man, Enoch, is out of school and has been befriended by a ghost of a Japanese kamikaze pilot. For unexplained reasons, he attends the funerals of strangers without invitation; at one of these he meets a young woman, Annabel, who says she works with children who have cancer, and the two start spending time together. Later Annabel acknowledges she has cancer herself, a fact which Enoch appears to accommodate, even when Annabel discovers she has only three months left to live. As their relationship becomes romantic, Enoch's placidity is explained by his own history of near-death experience, but when the loss of Annabel becomes a reality his behaviour betrays more evidence of turmoil. Annabel accepts and reacts to this. At Annabel's memorial Enoch asks to speak, but before he says anything memories of the couple's happiness together appear to resolve his grief.
Lusia Strus as Rachel Cotton, Annabel and Elizabeth's mother
Production
The film was produced through Columbia Pictures and Imagine Entertainment by daughter and father Bryce Dallas Howard and Ron Howard, as well as Brian Grazer. In August 2009, Gus Van Sant signed on to direct Restless. Based on a play by Jason Lew, the story centers on young love and mortality. Lew and Bryce Dallas Howard were fellow drama students at New York University; she encouraged him to take his project further and agreed to be a producer on the script. Her father Ron wanted to direct, but his schedule did not allow for it; "It was honestly like, 'If we could get a Gus Van Sant-type director...' That's what we were saying. We never thought we would actually get him to direct it," Bryce Dallas Howard said in an interview for the film's soundtrack release. "But he said yes immediately, and five weeks later we were shooting." Casting was done in Los Angeles with the intention of casting unknowns for the leads. In October 2009, Mia Wasikowska joined the project as the female lead. Wasikowska cut her hair for the film. The following November, Henry Hopper was cast as the male lead. Danny Elfman composed the score. Principal photography began in Portland, Oregon on November 12, 2009 and concluded in December. Post-production was completed in July 2010. Henry Hopper's father, Dennis, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in October 2009 and eventually died from the disease on 29 May 2010,. The film was dedicated to his memory.
Release
A trailer was released in October 2010. Restless was initially scheduled for release on January 28, 2011, but Columbia announced that they had pulled it from that slot in hopes of opening it later in the year. Columbia consequently withdrew the film from the 2011 Sundance Film Festival lineup as well. Restless was released on September 16, 2011 by Sony Pictures Classics. The film opened the Un Certain Regard section of the 2011 Cannes Film Festival on May 12. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on January 24, 2012. In addition to numerous featurettes, the Blu-ray release also contains a silent version of the film. The silent version runs at 76 minutes and contains takes in which Van Sant asked the actors to act as if there was a silent version of the script.
Reception
The film received mixed to negative reviews; it currently holds a 38% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus "Mia Wasikowska puts in a nuanced performance but nobody else, actors and directors included, are capable of finding a compelling angle beneath the twee veneer." On Metacritic, which uses an average of critics' reviews, the film has 47/100, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
Soundtrack
In 2013 La-La Land Records released a limited edition album of Danny Elfman's score. Track listing :
