Warning – This review contains minor spoilers
Sleep deprivation is a recognised form of torture. It can cause brain fog, mood swings and even psychosis. It’s important that we get our eight hours. But, at some point in our lives, we’ve probably lived underneath or next door to someone who wears bricks for shoes and likes a party on a Tuesday night. It probably irritated you or made you feel ill-at-ease or unrested. Did you confront them?
At the centre of Jed Hart’s Restless is Nicky (Lyndsey Marshal), who works in a care home and enjoys her routine. Her son is off to uni so it’s just her and her cat, Reggie (Pedro) at home. She’s also grieving the loss of both her parents, who live next door to her. And, when Deano (Aston McAuley) moves in, her quiet life is upended by cocaine-fuelled parties every night of the week. She asks him politely to turn the thumping bass down. But Deano isn’t interested in being neighbourly. Thus, a lack of sleep drives Nicky to the brink.
Aston McAuley creates a character who is nothing but odious and obnoxious. He uses his frame to dominate Nicky in their conversations; his aggression excused as “mental health issues”. He is full of mock concern and promises to be a better neighbour, swaggering to the door with his shirt off and his chest slick with sweat. Even as a viewer, you are trying somehow not to make eye contact with him, lest you be on the receiving end of yet another verbal tirade.
Lyndsey Marshal is excellent in leading this film. It is quickly established that she is an all round good human – someone who has tirelessly worked through the pandemic, caring for others, and regularly takes on extra shifts at her short-staffed place of work. Her life is gentle and still. She listens to opera because it was her dad’s favourite – and that’s presumably the reason she watches snooker most nights, too – and she bakes cakes from her mum’s yellowing, handwritten recipes. Marshal establishes Nicky as someone who takes comfort in the little things in life; someone who puts others first and avoids confrontation.
But this film is full of confrontation. Hart expertly builds a level of anxiety and tension that would have even the most robust of viewers on edge. More than this, as Nicky deteriorates through lack of sleep, we can no longer trust that what she sees and hears is actually happening. Through this unreliable narrator, Hart delivers a good few jump scares to keep you more than a little bit uncertain as to how this neighbourly dispute will end. Was that a shadow at the window? At the door? At the end of the bed? It’s executed very well, with Marshal’s bleary-eyed reactions utterly credible. There’s also an element of helplessness embedded throughout – both the council and the police want nothing to do with Nicky’s noise complaints nor do her neighbours “want any trouble”.
In amongst this tension, there are also lots of moments of dark humour. Fed up of trampling on dog dirt, Nicky bakes it into a brownie for Deano to eat. When she finally snaps and threatens to bury one of his friends alive, he insists he won’t fit in the hole she’s dug as he’s six foot two. Nicky’s potential love interest, Kevin (Barry Ward), insists that he’ll speak to Deano because, “We’ll see how he deals with a brown belt.” The camera then cuts to Kevin, writhing in pain with a broken nose. There is also a gloriously operatic, slow motion conclusion to the film that will make you see the score to Bizet’s Carmen in a whole new light.
Restless is a really well-crafted and thoroughly enjoyable ninety minutes. It is deserving of big festival audiences and more.
Restless has its European premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival. Get your tickets here.
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