Restless (2011)

"At once delicate and clumsy, tender and twee, Restless wraps the pain of grief and impending mortality in the balm of a teenage love story."

"Not keen on kook? Get ready to fidget. But those up for a sweet-natured romance full of idiosyncrasies will undoubtedly forgive the rather flyweight feel."

"It is hard to say, though, if this film is an argument for denial or a treatise on acceptance. Curiously, and in a way that is sometimes touching and sometimes icky, it does not seem to perceive much of a difference."

"This film is so annoying that as the lights went up, I was to be found hanging from the cinema ceiling by my fingernails, growling."

"All of the performances are pitched correctly. Nobody pushes too hard. Nobody underlines anything. Perhaps calmed by Van Sant, the characters seem peaceful, not troubled (as they should be)."

"The insistently quirky details don't disguise the fact that the drama grows ever more predictable and precious, complete with falling-in-love montage. Screenwriter Jason Lew's character insights take the form of the obvious."

"The most banal and indulgent of Gus Van Sant's periodic studies of troubled kids, this agonizingly treacly tale comes off like an indie version of "Love Story" except with worse music."

"Compared to its direct inspiration - Hal Ashby's blackly brilliant "Harold And Maude" - Restless comes off like an anemic facsimile. After the excellent "Milk," this is more like curdled cheese."

"Somehow, Van Sant has made a film about life and death in which the stakes never seem higher than whether one insolent kid will stop being such a horrible mope."