Directed by: Jed Hart
Written by: Jed Hart
Run Time: 1 hour 29 minutes
With the dust only just having settled from Christopher Abbott and Barry Keoghan’s ferocious farming feud in Bring Them Down (2024), coincidently there’s already another nasty neighbour narrative ready to square up to cinema screens. This time it’s from writer-director Jed Hart as he presents his feature debut Restless – but can it keep audiences content?
Nicky (Lyndsey Marshal) is an overworked and underappreciated nurse, being well and truly pushed to her limit. Not only is she run ragged at work, but she’s also navigating the sad loss of both her parents and has just seen her son move away for university. She’s made of strong stuff though, and despite her long hours, raw grief and newly established empty nest syndrome, she does her best to just get on with things. However, with the unceremonious arrival of noisy new next-door neighbour Dean (Aston McAuley), she’s brought to breaking point.
What’s perhaps so effective about Hart’s debut is just how realistic it feels. Negotiating with a nightmare neighbour is something many viewers will have actual experience of, or at least have heard horror stories about. But for Nicky, it’s her reality and it quickly becomes hell on earth. Her once peaceful and precious evenings, previously soundtracked with calming classical music, are now punctuated with the deafening drones of dubstep, violently pumping through the walls from next door. And after her polite request for Dean to turn the music down doesn’t work, it goes from bad to worse.
Between this initial altercation and all the subsequent issues it’s so easy to have empathy for Nicky. Dean is being undeniably unreasonable and it would be impossible not to feel sorry for her when she’s so clearly the victim. Evoking this emotional response from the audience so early on allows Hart to confidently hold his viewers in the palm of his hand. Just where he wants them before really cranking things up a notch. And Restless does just that, taking its drama to unexpected levels of suspense. There are several anxiety-inducing sequences that really tighten the tension, even testing how much audiences are willing to support Nicky in her ever-escalating retaliation tactics – and it’s this ethical uncertainty that makes Restless such a thrilling watch.
Of course this neighbourly dispute only succeeds as such because both Lyndsey Marshal and Aston McAuley give it their all in their respective roles, further enhancing the unsettling realism of it all. Marshal captures Nicky’s exasperation impressively, with each of Dean’s aggressions wearing her down even more. While McAuley’s thuggish, entitled attitude as Dean is often quite terrifying. The antagonistic atmosphere between them is deftly crafted and will have audiences especially invested, as if it was a fallout happening on their own street and they were watching from behind the blinds.
Thankfully, it’s not all hostility. As in an aside to her horrible home situation Nicky seeks some solace with local oddball Kevin (Barry Ward). Whether it’s his company, or more likely his peaceful house that she’s really interested in, Kevin offers some much needed levity amongst all the aggro, and Barry Ward gives him a charm that carves out somewhat of comedic space within this nasty thriller.
Curiously, this comedic tone does start to spread its way into the main narrative. There’s a slightly unearned tonal shift coming into the film’s final act that takes some getting used to, and unfortunately it does undo some of the film’s achievements in authenticity. The shift from realistic domestic drama, to more mischievous dark comedy isn’t wholly effective, but it doesn’t derail the film entirely either – undoubtedly saved by its very funny, very final moments.
One things for sure, the sight of Barry Ward in his cheetah print briefs would be enough to make anyone restless.
Star Rating: ★ ★ ★
Not Too Loud 
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