It’s a shame when you find a film that has so much potential but it veers off in the wrong direction. What started as something beautiful slowly and gradually turned to mud, and finally ended at complete crap. Sadly, that is the film Restless, a journey that follows one woman’s transformation from victimized empty nester to full-on Karen.
Set in the UK, Nicky (Lyndsey Marshal) lives alone and works full-time as a caregiver. Her life is pretty simple. She enjoys cooking, listening to classical music, and watching TV shows. The film opens up with a strong classical number that immediately puts me in suspense. It consistently weaves in and out of popular tracks from Beethoven to Mozart, making the score both soothing and suspenseful. But things take a turn in the story and for Nicky when a new tenant moves in next door.
The homes are connected and the walls are thin. At first, everything seemed ok, but once nightfall came, her peace was disrupted completely. Her new neighbor Deano (Aston McAuley) was drinking, and doing drugs, but most importantly to her, played his music at a nerve-racking level. After a handful of extremely passive requests to quiet him down, she resorts to foul play. The house that Deano lives in belonged to a relative of hers before they passed away, so she had a second set of keys. This is what she resorted to after sleeping multiple times in her car.
Before I continue I want to note, Lyndsey Marshal was decent, but Aston McAuley was excellent. He played a top-tier antagonist and executed it well, being both a bully and a troll. Where the film goes off a cliff falls solely on director Jed Hart. For this to be a debut feature, I’m simply not impressed.
The groundwork is laid so we’re supposed to side with Nicky, as she’s portrayed as an innocent, elderly bystander who’s just trying to relax in her home. All of that gets thrown out the window after she uses her keys to break into the home multiple times and even damage his property. We can even zoom out a bit for the sake of cinema and just roll with that as bad writing (because at this point, nobody should feel bad for her at all, she’s a Karen now). There is absolutely no defense for her to be cowardly and passive the entire film until she suspects Deano’s Black friend, Clarkey (Denzel Baidoo), of killing her cat. After she sneaks into the house (for a third time) she finds her cat after he had gone missing for a day. So instead of directing all of her anger and frustration at her neighbor, she takes it out on Clarkey. And I’m not just talking about cussing him out or reporting him to the police, I’m talking about taping him up, kidnapping him, and throwing him into her trunk. So she can’t seem to muster up any courage to tell the White guy to act civil, but she can straight up use a knife to kidnap a Black guy, who didn’t start this beef, and drive him off to a remote location to teach a lesson? Trash. These types of microaggressions are common in English media so no surprise it would find its way here.
Not only that, the lighting in this film was terrible. For this to have somewhat of a revenge plot, too much of the film, probably 40%, was in the dark. So the lighting was bad, the racial microaggressions are terrible, and Nicky just isn’t a likable character… At all.
Restless gets a 5 out of 10 and that’s only for the amazing score. McAuley gets an “A” for his acting chops, but there’s not much else to get out of this. I’m not feeling bad for someone who tries to trick their neighbor into eating brownies with dog poop in it but has the nerve to cry when their neighbor finds out she broke into his house. A toxic cycle unfolds before our eyes as we watch Nicky, a harmless victim in the beginning, gradually become a victimizer. Moderate direction and poor execution, but, with a few changes, this could be a good film.
Tribeca schedule
Sunday, June 9th – 8:00 PM at Village East by Angelika
-Jon Jones
Photos: Courtesy of Tribeca Film Festival