Miss Flicks

Restless: Film Review

One of my worst nightmares – a neighbour from hell – is brought to life in Jed Hart‘s feature directorial debut Restless.

The film stars Lyndsey Marshal as Nicky, who is all alone for the first time in years following the death of her parents and her son flying the nest. Her quiet, peaceful life is shattered when a nightmare neighbour named Dean (Aston McAuley) moves into her parents’ old house next door and invites friends over for a party every night, blaring pounding dance music until the early hours.

Restless is a psychological thriller with plenty of dark humour. Hart and Marshal do a fantastic job of escalating the situation and gradually building on Nicky’s sleep deprivation, stress and despair. The sound design and the fight between her classical music and his dance music effectively puts you inside the house and in Nicky’s POV.

The noise and lack of sleep inevitably make her frazzled, irritable and on edge to begin with. But as the nights drag on and the attempts to fix the situation don’t work, something inside her snaps. She starts to retaliate and take matters into her own hands. When you’re pushed to the brink of madness, you’ll do anything to make it stop. Marshal is brilliant at charting her character’s gradual descent into insanity, while Hart adds dream sequences to build the tension and illustrate her fragile state of mind.

There are many ways this story could have played out and I had no idea which direction it would take. You think you know because of the opening teaser, but that’s far too obvious and the film is smarter and more unpredictable than that. I won’t give any spoilers away, but let’s just say that the resolution is brilliant and not at all what I expected.

Restless is an intense psychological thriller with a surprising amount of levity and superb performance from Marshal.

In cinemas from Friday 4th April

Check out my interview with writer/director Jed Hart and lead actress Lyndsey Marshal