The Playlist has eleven great images from Gus Van Sant’s upcoming film, Restless, which has just had its debut opening the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, and will hopefully see a UK release later this year.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve been looking forward to this film ever since it was announced, and even more so after the first trailers came out at the end of last year. Van Sant’s body of work is exceptional, winning him the Palme d’Or, Cannes’ most prestigious prize, for Elephant in 2003, as well as Academy Award nominations for Best Director with Good Will Hunting and Milk.
Restless is Van Sant’s first feature since Milk, and tells the story of a terminally ill teenage girl (Mia Wasikowska, Alice in Wonderland) who falls in love with a boy (Henry Hopper) that likes to attend funerals and is friends with the ghost of a Japanese WWII pilot (Ryo Kase, Letters from Iwo Jima). It is dedicated to the late Dennis Hopper, Henry’s father, who himself died from Cancer in May last year.
The film is written by Jason Lew, adapted from his own play, Of Winter and Water Birds, and is his first time writing for the big screen. Lew’s fellow NYU graduate, Bryce Dallas Howard (Terminator Salvation), is making her producing debut with this film. Howard is the daughter of well known actor, director, and producer Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind), who co-founded Imagine Entertainment with producer Brian Grazer (24), both of whom have also worked as producers on Restless, alongside Van Sant.
With Wasikowska and Hopper’s relationship naturally at the centre of the film, they occupy the large majority of the eleven new images, with Kase’s pilot character also cropping up in two, as well as showing Van Sant at work behind the scenes. Without further ado, here are the pictures.
