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Restless | 2011 | PG-13 | - 4.5.4

When a grieving teenager (Henry Hopper) falls in love with a terminally ill teen (Mia Wasikowska), his life of crashing funerals and spending time with the ghost of a WWII Japanese kamikaze pilot is irrevocably changed. Also with Ryo Kase, Schuyler Fisk and Jane Adams. Directed by Gus Van Sant. [1:31]

SEX/NUDITY 4 - A teen boy and a teen girl kiss passionately, the girl unbuttons her shirt (a bra strap is seen on her bare shoulder), they continue to kiss and sex is implied as we see them wake up the following morning (the teen boy's arms are around the teen girl as they lie side by side in bed).
 A teen girl and a teen boy kiss frequently. A teen girl lies next to a teen boy on the ground and they kiss briefly. A teen boy and a teen girl hold hands and kiss. A teen boy and a teen girl kiss and hug. A teen boy kisses a teen girl and lies next to her in bed. A teen girl wraps her arms around a teen boy.
 A man asks a teen boy if he will "do it again" in reference to having sex with a teen girl and the boy brushes off the question.
 We see the bare chests of three teen boys, obscured by body paint.

VIOLENCE/GORE 5 - Three teen boys shout and run after another teen boy who shouts and grabs a teen girl and another teen boy and runs away; the three teen boys continue to run and shout as the other two teen boys and teen girl get into a car and drive away.
 A man knocks a teen boy to the ground, puts his hands around the boy's neck and threatens to choke him to death; the boy challenges the man to choke him, and we then see the boy with a small abrasion under his eye when he wakes up in a hospital.
 A teen boy shouts angrily at a man and accuses him of sitting idly by while a teen girl died; the teen boy grabs a telephone from the man's hand, a security guard grabs the boy, he falls to the ground and is held down by a third man as a security guard places him in handcuffs.
 A teen girl has a seizure, she falls back out of a chair, a young woman shouts for their mother to come, the teen girl's mother cries and holds the teen girl as she goes catatonic and we later see the girl recovering in a hospital. A teen girl is seen in a hospital bed with an IV hooked to her arm, we see an IV pouch filled with blood and a teen boy asks if the transfusion hurts. It is implied that a doctor is giving a young woman bad news about the health of her teenage sister; we see the sister receiving a CT scan and later see the young woman crying and discussing with the teenage girl that she only has three months to live.
 A teen girl gently touches the hair of a dead teen girl lying on a gurney. At a funeral, we see an open casket and briefly see the face of a dead man. A teen boy stares at the body of an older man during an open casket funeral service at a mausoleum. It is implied that a teen girl dies peacefully as a teen boy and a male ghost watch; we later see the boy attending the girl's funeral.
 A teen boy shouts angrily at a headstone and smashes it with a sledgehammer. A teen boy shouts at a woman, accusing her of being the cause of his parents dying in a car accident. A teen girl shouts at a woman. A teen boy shouts at a man. A teen boy and a teen girl shout at one another and the boy storms away.
 A man explains to a teen boy the steps of seppuku, saying that a samurai would take a knife and stab himself in the stomach and drag it across his torso to disembowel himself. A teen girl explains to a teen boy about a type of insect that smells a decaying carcass, then mates and later feed the hatched insects from the same decaying carcass. A woman tells a teen boy that she had not expected him to live after a car accident, since he was in such a deep coma. A teen boy tells a teen girl that his parents had died in a car accident caused by a drunk driver and he also explains that he had been in a coma for more than three months after being declared legally dead. A man warns a teen boy that a teen girl is going to die soon. An imaginary man (we see him) tells a teen boy to not stand on the edge of a train trestle; the teen boy implies that he no longer thinks of suicide so the man should not worry. A young man gives a eulogy about his young brother and mentions frequently that his brother had died. A teen girl tells a teen boy that she only has three months to live, due to an aggressive cancer. A teen boy tells a teen girl that another teen boy had "beaten up" a teenage boy after the teen boy made a crude remark about the teen's parents dying in a car accident. A teen girl tells a teen boy that she is considering donating her body to science, and the teen boy disagrees with her, saying that it would be "gross" for her to be "cut up" and have her body parts in jars; the teen girl then asks the teen boy if he would visit her disembodied eyeballs in a jar. A teen boy's voice reads a letter written by a kamikaze pilot and the letter details how he knew he would die in the ocean and that he was completely aware of his impending death. A teen boy tells a teen girl that he had attended a man's funeral where he had died from a "skin disease" that made him "go crazy" and die; the teen boy then offhandedly remarks that it was a closed-coffin funeral. A teen boy and a teen girl sit in a hospital morgue, and they make jokes about the ways people could have died, saying a woman had been mauled by an ape and another woman had been run over by a golf cart. A teen girl tells her mother about a breed of bird that believes it is going to die every night when the sun sets. A teen girl half-jokingly mentions to a teen boy that she is still going to die. A teen girl half-jokingly makes a remark to an unseen Japanese fighter pilot about the bomb being dropped on Hiroshima. A teen boy jokingly tells a teen girl that a young boy's soccer kick could "kill a golden retriever."
 As part of a play that is acted out by a teen girl and a teen boy concerning the teen girl's deathbed, the boy discovers the girl lying on the ground; she appears lifeless and dramatically goes through her final words (she then stands up unharmed) and the boy says that he will kill himself and pantomimes stabbing himself in the stomach.
 We briefly see footage of nuclear bombs dropped on Japan, and wreckage and rubble is seen on the ground as a man wanders through the rubble.
 A teen boy makes a chalk outline of himself on the ground, similar to a crime scene. A teen boy makes a chalk outline of himself and a teen girl on the ground; we later see it empty and it is similar to a crime scene. A teen boy stumbles and falls to the ground as he playfully chases a teen girl through a forest; the boy stands up unharmed.
 A teen boy dry heaves, we hear the sound of vomit and see a shadowy outline of the vomit leaving his mouth.

LANGUAGE 4 - 6 scatological terms, 2 mild obscenities, 1 derogatory term for homosexuals, name-calling (disrespectful little prankster, world's unluckiest boy, white people, bug stalker, total hack, different, jerks, funeral crashing dropout with no car and a dead friend, kinda creepy, terrifying, cowards, acting like a two year old, idiot, pathetic), 1 religious profanity, 6 religious exclamations.

SUBSTANCE USE - A woman drinks two glasses of liquor quickly and acts intoxicated, and a young woman asks her intoxicated mother to not drink additional liquor. A man is seen smoking a cigarette.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Cancer, death of parents, death of a loved one, kamikaze pilots, suicide, imagination, ghosts, naturalists, life after death, closure, grief.

MESSAGE - Grief can manifest itself in many ways and dealing with grief can be very difficult.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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