I thought the acting was excellent, it's not actor studio and it's probably for the best. I never liked people who over act and think they're portraying reality (except James Dean and Marlon Brando in Apocalypse now). Sean Penn in Milk to me was unbearable, flamboyant and irritating. So it was quite refreshing to see Henry Hopper being so vague and timid, I thought he was touching, he looked hurt and lost and that was better to me than "professional acting". Mia Wasikowska was beautiful and charismatic. They were both real to me, they exist. It's no Elephant or Gerry and guess what it's not MOPI or Drugstore Cowboys either. It's Gus Van Sant doing a romantic comedy with his themes death, friendship and teenagers. It's light on the surface and dark below.
A film doesn't work necessarily by his script but by the feelings, the atmosphere and the tone it leaves you with. That film grew up on me hours after I've seen it. It made me think about life, just like Melancholia did (Melancholia felt to some people like a bunch of scenes where nothing happens, well it creates a whole thing, like pieces of a puzzle you gather altogether, it's not easy cinema where everything is explained to you, dully underlined, where you're being forced a message without having to think for yourself, like Paul Haggis's CRASH for example).
Restless is a good little movie, not a big masterpiece. Restless is a deep and arty film disguised as a quirky Rom-com. It has different levels of lecture. It's about questioning the time you spend on earth, what you decide to do with that time and lots of other
Some argue it's too clean in its depiction of cancer? So what? The subject is not cancer but the beauty of life and how death is part of life, and after all it is a romantic comedy so why show an ugly death? Furthermore some cancer don't disfigure people? I known a man who died a week after he got diagnosed, he had a brain tumour.
It's got a beautiful cinematography (Portland in autumn, great lights and beautiful colourful trees), wonderful themes (Life and Death with bugs, hospital, birds, Darwin) and nice soundtrack. It's a very moving film and it worked for me.
A film doesn't work necessarily by his script but by the feelings, the atmosphere and the tone it leaves you with. That film grew up on me hours after I've seen it. It made me think about life, just like Melancholia did (Melancholia felt to some people like a bunch of scenes where nothing happens, well it creates a whole thing, like pieces of a puzzle you gather altogether, it's not easy cinema where everything is explained to you, dully underlined, where you're being forced a message without having to think for yourself, like Paul Haggis's CRASH for example).
Restless is a good little movie, not a big masterpiece. Restless is a deep and arty film disguised as a quirky Rom-com. It has different levels of lecture. It's about questioning the time you spend on earth, what you decide to do with that time and lots of other
Some argue it's too clean in its depiction of cancer? So what? The subject is not cancer but the beauty of life and how death is part of life, and after all it is a romantic comedy so why show an ugly death? Furthermore some cancer don't disfigure people? I known a man who died a week after he got diagnosed, he had a brain tumour.
It's got a beautiful cinematography (Portland in autumn, great lights and beautiful colourful trees), wonderful themes (Life and Death with bugs, hospital, birds, Darwin) and nice soundtrack. It's a very moving film and it worked for me.