There are two Gus Van Sants. One makes abstruse and fascinating oddities like Gerry and Last Days and Paranoid Park, and the other is a bit more commercial and brought us Good Will Hunting and Milk. Restless** looks like it's been directed by the latter, and a new trailer is online over at Yahoo.
The fact that it might be heading for a wider audience than Elephant doesn't mean it's not peculiar-sounding on paper though. Details were sketchy when the project was first announced, and you can kind of see why, given that it's a teen romance, but one that involves a terminally ill cancer patient and a funeral-crasher whose best friend is the ghost of a Japanese kamikaze pilot.
We might expect a blub-fest, but weirdly, the trailer makes it seem rather feel-good. Possibly that's down to the music, and possibly it's the sweet-looking performaces from Henry Hopper and Alice in Wonderland's Mia Wasikowska.
Ryo Kase plays the ghost, and there's support from Schuyler Fisk and Jane Adams. Empire**'s Damon Wise saw it at Cannes. For the rest of us, the release date is October 21.