Restless

Normally reliable director Gus Van Sant delivers one of his very worst movies with this crazily awful story about a dying girl (the dreary Mia Wasikowska) and the boy she hangs around with in her final days (Henry Hopper, son of Dennis and inheritor of zero talent). Maybe, maybe there could have been something here if the two leads weren’t so damned boring and inept. Watching Hopper trying to emote is like watching a chimpanzee with no arms and legs trying to wriggle out of an extra large trash bag—it just ain’t happening for the poor creature. On top of the terrible main plot, Hopper’s character has a ghost friend (Ryo Kase), a dead kamikaze pilot who plays Battleship with him. Pretty stupid and lame choice of board games for a kamikaze pilot. Van Sant has made slow, deliberately paced films before, but this one has absolutely no flow. It’s easily one of the year’s worst movies, and a severe setback for a good director.