New Trailer for Gus Van Sant's Restless Starring Mia Wasikowska
Posted 07.08.11 by Ryan
Leave it to director Gus Van Sant to make a love story about death.
Van Sant's last movie, the 2008 biopic Milk, followed the life of San Francisco's openly-gay Supervisor Harvey Milk and the rise and unfortunate fall of his life and career. The movie earned Van Sant an Academy Award nomination for his direction, and won Sean Penn his second Oscar for his work in the title role. His latest directorial effort is Restless, returns Van Sant to his more indie roots, with another intimate, character-driven story about love and death.
Written by actor-turned-screenwriter Jason Lew, Restless is about the terminally ill Annabel (Mia Wasikowska) who falls for a morose Enoch (newcomer Henry Hopper, son of the late Dennis Hopper), whose best friend is the ghost of a Japanese kamikaze pilot (Ryo Kase). It all makes sense in the
latest trailer for the movie, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May.
Before watching the trailer, check out the synopsis for Restless, taken from the movie's official website.
Annabel Cotton (Wasikowska) is a beautiful and charming terminal cancer patient with a deep felt love of life and the natural world. Enoch Brae (Hopper) is a young man who has dropped out of the business of living, after an accident claimed the life of his parents. When these two outsiders chance to meet at a funeral, they find an unexpected common ground in their unique experiences of the world. For Enoch, it includes his best friend Hiroshi (Kase) who happens to be the ghost of a Kamikaze fighter pilot. For Annabel, it involves an admiration of Charles Darwin and an interest in how other creatures live. Upon learning of Annabel's imminent early passing, Enoch offers to help her face her last days with an irreverent abandon, tempting fate, tradition and even death itself.
As their unique love for each other grows, so do the realities of the world that they have felt closing in on them. Daring, childlike, and distinctly rare — these two bravely face what life has in store for them. Fighting pain, anger and loss with youth, playfulness and originality, these two misfits turn the tables on life and play by their own rules. Their journey begins to collide with the unstoppable march of time, as the natural cycle of life comes to claim Annabel.
While Restless opened to mixed reviews at Cannes (some loved it, some didn't), Van Sant agreed with Vulture in a May interview that the movie is "softer and sweeter" than his previous work.
It’s delicate. I think rather than soft, you would say "delicate." I didn’t even see it as delicate, because I can read something that’s delicate and relate to it, and if I relate to it, I don’t really consider it as delicate. But later, now that we’re showing it, I realize that there is a delicate nature to just the whole balance of the story and the characters. I don’t know. I think everything that I have done has been delicate in some fashion. But not delicate, like, literally delicate, but delicate emotions.
Audiences can find out for themselves how "delicate" the movie is on September 16th.