Restless
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: September 16, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
47
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews
Positive:
8
Mixed:
16
Negative:
6
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
Orlando SentinelRoger MooreOct 5, 2011
Restless is far more precious than profound. But that takes little away from this soulful teenage exploration of love, life and death. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertSep 21, 2011
All of the performances are pitched correctly. Nobody pushes too hard. Nobody underlines anything. Perhaps calmed by Van Sant, the characters seem peaceful, not troubled (as they should be). Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliSep 20, 2011
An emotionally rewarding experience: strong performances from leads Henry Hooper and Mia Wasikowska and a tender love story conveyed with genuine feeling. Read full review
70
MovielineStephanie ZacharekSep 12, 2011
The picture is so fluttering and tender, so guileless, that you almost can't believe it was made by an old hand like Van Sant. Then again, maybe you can. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsOct 21, 2011
If you haven't seen a wasting disease in real life, you might think Restless is romantic. If you have, you might diagnose it as terminally cute. Read full review
63
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottOct 7, 2011
As clearly calculated and self-consciously cutesy as it is, it's also tender and meaningful stuff -- and far more watchable than other recent attempts to capture the existential angst of adolescence. ("The Art of Getting By.") Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia PuigSep 15, 2011
Restless is a self-consciously quirky coming-of-age tale that's essentially a teenage hipster "Love Story." Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter TraversSep 15, 2011
Wasikowska, from "Alice in Wonderland" to "Jane Eyre," is an actress of translucent expressiveness. And Hopper has his father's brooding intensity and a quicksilver humor all his own. They are both so good, I suggest you dive into the story unfolding in their eyes rather than the banal one in the script. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicRichard NilsenOct 6, 2011
You also aren't sure what the film is about or if it's about anything at all, except fluid filmmaking. Read full review
60
Boxoffice MagazinePete HammondSep 14, 2011
If "Harold and Maude" hadn't already gotten there 40 years ago, this quirky but engaging trifle might seem refreshingly original. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfSep 13, 2011
Gus Van Sant directs his players just shy of mush; he's a filmmaker capable of brilliant dares (Milk, Paranoid Park) and shocking whiffs (Finding Forrester, the pointless remake of Psycho). This one's kind of in the middle. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezOct 6, 2011
If anyone other than Gus Van Sant had directed Restless, the film could have well been impossible to sit through. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceySep 29, 2011
Relentlessly twee as all this is, Wasikowska's warmth and Hopper's off-beat timing (he's the son of the late Dennis Hopper) are appealing to watch. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadaySep 29, 2011
Restless is saved from movie-of-the-week soppiness by its plucky lead actors; by now we assume (correctly) that Wasikowska will infuse her character with lucid, clear-eyed warmth. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaSep 29, 2011
If illuminating dawns and dusks had basked Mia Wasikowska and Henry Hopper in a rosy glow, the mopey cuteness of Restless would have been too much to bear. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesSheri LindenSep 17, 2011
The insistently quirky details don't disguise the fact that the drama grows ever more predictable and precious, complete with falling-in-love montage. Screenwriter Jason Lew's character insights take the form of the obvious. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. ScottSep 15, 2011
It is hard to say, though, if this film, directed by Gus Van Sant from a script by Jason Lew, is an argument for denial or a treatise on acceptance. Curiously, and in a way that is sometimes touching and sometimes icky, it does not seem to perceive much of a difference. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumSep 15, 2011
Annabel and Enoch learn from each other, even as time ticks away and the end draws near. Weeping is invited, but by no means required. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubKeith PhippsSep 14, 2011
Somehow, Van Sant has made a film about life and death in which the stakes never seem higher than whether one insolent kid will stop being such a horrible mope. Read full review
50
Village VoiceMark HolcombSep 13, 2011
Gus Van Sant's latest - a middle-class hetero teen romance, no less - walks the line between mainstream sentimentality and dark art-house humor so effectively that it seems noncommittal. Read full review
50
VarietyJustin ChangSep 12, 2011
At once delicate and clumsy, tender and twee, Restless wraps the pain of grief and impending mortality in the balm of a teenage love story. Read full review
40
EmpireDamon WiseOct 17, 2011
Compared to its direct inspiration - Hal Ashby's blackly brilliant "Harold And Maude" - Restless comes off like an anemic facsimile. After the excellent "Milk," this is more like curdled cheese. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenOct 5, 2011
This story about two death-obsessed teens is twee and precious instead of genuine and candid. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierSep 16, 2011
This overly twee, morbidly cute romance initially digs up the ageless "Harold and Maude" as a touchstone before it slips the coils of watchability. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeTy BurrSep 29, 2011
A torpidly precious love story about death-obsessed adolescents, the film's becalmed and embalmed in its own sensitive self-pity. Read full review
38
New York PostLou LumenickSep 16, 2011
Unlike Van Sant's grittier, less sentimental recent small films, it's twee enough to make your teeth ache. It's the director's biggest miscalculation since "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" 18 years ago. Read full review
30
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesSep 22, 2011
The young sweethearts amuse themselves by donning steampunk outfits and crashing the funerals of dead children, which may seem quirky and sweet if you can disregard the awful grief of such gatherings; the problem is that, once you manage this, the main characters' grief doesn't register either. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthySep 12, 2011
The most banal and indulgent of Gus Van Sant's periodic studies of troubled kids, this agonizingly treacly tale comes off like an indie version of "Love Story" except with worse music. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoSep 22, 2011
The film is morbid and mawkish, and packed with enough forced whimsy to make you scream. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineNick SchagerSep 11, 2011
Gus Van Sant's cinema, which of late has been fixated on immersing viewers in particular times and spaces, takes a detour into excruciating quirkland with Restless. Read full review
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