Restless

As follow-up to his Oscar-winning biopic Milk, Gus Van Sant directs this dulcet drama about first love that plays out like a tender and bittersweet lullaby. Henry Hopper, son of the late Dennis Hopper, makes his major film debut as Enoch Brae, an orphaned teen obsessed with mortality in the wake of his parents' deaths. Emotionally scarred and socially awkward, Enoch has only one friend—Hiroshi (Ryo Kase), a kamikaze pilot-cum-ghost that regularly beats him in games of "Battleship." While practicing the macabre hobby of funeral crashing, Enoch meets Annabel, played by rising star and mesmerizing ingénue Mia Wasikowska. A sprightly girl with an inoperable brain tumor, she disturbs his self-imposed solitude. Where he is dark, she is light—ever-smiling and pontificating on the glory of the waking world as seen through the works of Charles Darwin, even as she faces her own fast-approaching demise. And so love blooms as winter (both literal and figurative) approaches. Obviously, it's eccentric, but what really sets Restless apart from other teen tales of love and death is its lithely blithe heroes and awkward elegance. Like its untested and sometimes strained leading man, Restless is rough around the edges, but undeniably visually striking and beautifully heartbreaking.