This Promising Thriller Goes Completely Off the Rails After a Promising Start

Neighbors from hell. We’ve all had them at one point or another in life. And when the main complaint is noise in an urban (or suburban) area, the situation is just as common as it is stressful. Whether it’s a shouty couple or a bar with live music and very poor soundproofing, folks who have little regard for their fellow humans’ peace of mind are a dime a dozen. Naturally, those of us who care deeply about our sleep want to strangle these horrible neighbors to death with our bare hands. We don’t do it, of course, but we want to.

Thus, it is very likely that a movie like Jed Hart’s Restless will have no trouble resonating with viewers all over the world, what with its tension-filled story about a solitary woman’s struggle against the party house next door. However, when we really look at it, Restless has more than a few problems. With issues ranging from a silly ending to some very complicated politics, Hart’s feature-length debut starts strong, but devolves into something far less than entertaining.

‘Restless’ Is a Battle Between Two Neighbors

The premise is simple and familiar enough. Living alone in her house after her son’s departure for college, Nicky (Lyndsey Marshal) has trouble adjusting to the arrival of a new neighbor that has moved into what was once her parents’ place. With a demanding job at a nursing home, Nicky values her beauty sleep, as well as other quiet hours of the day. In order to keep things as calm as possible, she listens to classical music, follows sleep hygiene podcasts, and enjoys peaceful dinners while watching pool championships on TV. She sounds like an insanely boring person, but that’s exclusively her prerogative.

On the other hand, her new neighbor, Deano (Aston McAuley), is likewise extremely annoying, but from a different perspective. His life is perhaps way too fun, if such a thing exists. Every night, he hosts loud, cocaine-fueled parties at his home – parties that keep Nicky up until morning, when she has to leave for work. To make matters even worse, he’s also inconsiderate in other aspects of his relationship with others around him, leaving dog poop on Nicky’s yard and downright allowing his guests to offend her. While the rest of the folks around the neighborhood don’t seem bothered by Deano’s behavior, Nicky, who is right next door to him, can’t help but feel that her life has been turned into a living hell.

‘Restless’ Starts With Promise

Initially, this battle between Nicky and Deano is quite interesting. Hart manages to show Nicky’s sense of despair and paranoia growing through evocative images, like cracks spreading across the walls and Deano walking down a silent beach while banging a drum in a dream sequence that is indeed quite funny. For a while, it is also hard to tell how much of Nicky’s dislike for Deano results from his disrespectful behavior and how much stems from her own inner pain. The sound in Restless is designed to make every single noise Deano makes, from the aforementioned drum-banging to simply scrambling with his keys, borderline deafening. Thus, for about 40 minutes, there is an interesting film in Restless about a woman whose entire world is just too loud for her to bear.

It makes sense: with Deano moving into her late parents’ home, Nicky’s life is completely destabilized. Suddenly, it’s not something comfortable and familiar that she has near her, but something other and threatening. With no other perspectives present in the movie, at least not until about the 40-minute mark, it’s hard to tell whether Deano is really that terrible or if Nicky is just projecting her discomfort with a changing universe onto her neighbor. Alas, as you may have guessed by now, this interesting thriller about a woman’s slow descent into madness fueled by her own loneliness doesn’t last long. It ends when another character comes in and confirms what Nicky has always suspected: that Deano is indeed one loud and aggressive jerk.

‘Restless’ Goes Downhill After a Bizarre Vibe Shift

From then on, Restless undergoes a vibe shift so deep that it’s almost as if the film changed directors in the middle of production. Suddenly, what was once an enthralling, sympathetic thriller becomes a version of Death Wish made specifically for suburban empty nesters. Nicky goes to wild, unrealistic extremes to stop her neighbor from hosting his never-ending parties, and Deano becomes a veritable monster as he engages in unthinkable acts of violence. The plot develops in a way that is not only silly, as the ending feels completely convenient and implausible, but also mean and even somewhat offensive. We’ll try not to spoil too much in case you still want to watch Restless after reading this review, but there is a particular scene in which Nicky enacts her vengeance on a Black friend of Deano that feels quite racist. I mean, the optics of a white, suburban Karen attacking a Black young man are already not great, but the way it all plays out in the film is just icky.

Overall, Restless reeks of wasted potential. There is a good movie to be found in Jed Hart’s script, provided that it undergoes some doctoring before being put to film. The performances are not bad, with Marshal standing out as the lead. The cinematography is creative, albeit some scenes might get too dark. However, as the movie becomes a strange power fantasy for a very specific group of people, it’s also interesting to notice how Nicky’s love for classical music contrasts with Deano’s preference for less intellectually approved genres. By the end, the movie ultimately devolves into a messy, ugly story with very little to say. It’s a film that you start desperately wanting to like, perhaps because it deceives you into believing it is something other than a violent power fantasy. As the film comes to a close, all that is left is a sour taste in your mouth.

Restless releases on VOD on May 23.