Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Jed Hart
Starring: Lyndsey Marshal, Aston McAuley, Barry Ward, Kate Robbins, Denzel Baidoo,
Ciara Ford
I've always been uncomfortable with the idea of a "Karen." The internet
revels in sharing "gotcha" footage of women freaking out in public, but
we're only seeing a tiny fragment of those women's lives. We have no idea
what they might be going through when a camera isn't pointed in their
faces at their lowest moments. While I have no sympathy for any women that
might get caught using racial slurs or abusing customer service employees,
I do find it a little suspect how it always seems to be women captured in
these videos. Just as short men who assert themselves are likely to be
compared to Napoleon, female assertion is often conflated with aggression.
Women usually have to speak louder, sometimes even shout or scream to be
heard. Look behind every Karen and you'll probably find a man who made her
that way.
There are several moments in Jed Hart's stellar directorial
debut Restless that might lead to its female protagonist, Nicky (Lyndsey Marshal), being caught out of context and labelled a Karen. She freaks out in
public several times and if one particular instance happened to leak onto
the web, she'd likely be wrongly framed as a racist and have her life
destroyed. But the film makes us privy to everything that leads Nicky to
lose it, and behind this potential Karen is one awful, awful man.
At the point we meet Nicky she's already worn out, thanks to a job as a
carer at a nursing home that regularly requires her to work on her days
off thanks to short staffing. With such a stressful day job, Nicky places
great emphasis on relaxing in the evening. Soundtracked by the soothing
sounds of a classical radio station, Nicky indulges in her passion for
baking, cuddles her cat Ritchie, and watches that most relaxing of sport,
snooker, before going to bed with peaceful nature sounds playing in her
headphones. It all looks like the very definition of cosy bliss.
Nicky's tranquil routine is disrupted when a young man, Deano (Aston McAuley), moves into the council house next door, which had previously been
occupied by Nicky's late parents. On the first night Deano throws a party,
blasting loud dance music into the early hours of the following morning.
Nicky is understandably pissed off, but she assumes it's simply a one-off
housewarming party. This proves wildly optimistic as the next night Deano
throws another all-nighter, and refuses to turn the music down at Nicky's
request. It soon becomes clear that Nicky is going to have to put up with
this nuisance on a nightly basis, as neither the police nor the council
are willing to get involved.
Initially terrified of the imposing and threatening Deano, Nicky makes
compromises to get a decent night's sleep, ranging from sleeping in her
car to agreeing to go on a date with hapless parking attendant Kevin (a
hilarious Barry Ward), to whom she is far from attracted but
who offers a quiet bed. But as the internet has taught us, you don't fuck
with a woman's cat, and when Ritchie disappears and Nicky assumes Deano
and his mates are responsible, she decides to fight back.
Restless is a strikingly assured directorial debut. Displaying remarkable
confidence in his craft, Hart takes what in most hands would be a standard
piece of gritty British social realism and elevates the story with a bag
of cinematic tricks that never clashes with the everyday drama. Recent low
budget British dramas like Scrapper and Hoard have integrated surreal elements in a way that distracts from the
gritty drama, but Hart manages to pull off this balancing act thanks
largely to the increasingly deranged psychology of his protagonist. Hart
employs expressionist sequences to convey Nicky's addled mind, like how
Deano's banging music weaves its way into one of her peaceful dreams or a
scene in which Nicky's entire house begins to throb and shake as though a
T-Rex was approaching. The film integrates its sound design in a manner
that becomes integral to the storytelling, contrasting Nicky's chilled out
world of Classic FM and Ken Doherty's monotone snooker commentary with the
constant thud, thud, thud of Deano's sound system. So effective is the
sound that I began to worry that my own neighbours might think I was
throwing a Deano-style party.
For all of Hart's brilliant directorial touches, as is usually the case
with low budget British cinema it's the performances here that create the
most lasting impact. A long-time supporting player, Marshal excels in the
lead role of Nicky. She conveys Nicky's physical and mental deterioration
so effectively that simply looking at her knackered features will have you
stifling a yawn. Deano is a rather one-note villain but McAuley is
convincingly unhinged as the epitome of the nightmare neighbour next door.
Hart follows Hitchcock's guidance that even the darkest story needs
moments of comic relief by casting the usually deadpan Ward ingeniously
against type as the cringey Kevin.
That Hart manages to meld elements of social realism, black comedy and
psychological thriller into such a satisfying concoction is a remarkable
feat for such a first-timer. His script is cleverly constructed and filled
with so many satisfying pay-offs that it could be taught in screenwriting
classes as an example of low budget storytelling. The drama may play out
in the relatively mundane settings of a couple of council houses,
but Restless feels expansive and larger than life while also being all too
relatable for any viewers who have found themselves struggling to get a
decent night's kip. Don't sleep on this one.
