The Restless (2021, Joachim Lafosse) (Patreon)

38/100

Rating's misleading, as I despised this film until its final 20 minutes or so and am still astonished that it managed to crawl its way out of the teens. Few things inspire greater tedium, for me, than awaiting someone's inevitable relapse, especially if we're gonna cycle through the highs and lows multiple times; almost every movie that's explicitly about alcoholism and/or drug addiction has the same torturously repetitive rhythm, and that turns out to be equally true of a movie that's explicitly about bipolar disorder. Damien goes into a manic phase and becomes impossible to deal with; Leïla tries in vain to persuade Damien to take his lithium; the couple's pre-adolescent son watches in mute terror; the family (including Damien's father) finally has Damien involuntarily committed so that he can be treated; things briefly return to normal; Damien goes into a manic phase and becomes impossible to deal with; Leïla tries in vain to persuade Damien to take his lithium; the couple's pre-adolescent son watches in mute terror...it's just the same sequence of events, over and over again, sans any interesting variation or even just a sense that these people have richly complicated baseline lives with which Damien's disease interferes. (He's a painter, and we frequently see him at work, but whether being manic helps or hinders his creativity never gets clearly communicated.) Lafosse's own father was reportedly bipolar, so I'm sure the portrait is accurate, but that doesn't make it any less tiresome. But then The Restless suddenly finds—or turns out to have been building toward, if I'm feeling generous—a surprising and compelling angle, viz. the destructive toll that caring for Damien takes upon Leïla. It's very strongly suggested, toward the end, that he's genuinely broken the cycle and is on the road to a lasting "recovery" (i.e., he's managing the disease, has learned to recognize the warning signs and medicate properly)...but by that point, it's too late. Leïla's so snake-bit that she's hallucinating fangs that aren't there. Loved the final shot, which cues us to think she'll relent, recognizing the difference that we can clearly see, and then literally goes in reverse. So the film earns some grudging respect. Still hated watching the vast majority of it, though, so in good conscience I can't do more than promote it from CON to con.

And that's a wrap, finally, on the Cannes '21 competition slate. (Still half a dozen to go from last year—none of them terribly enticing, though the Desplechin has some mild fans. And then there's Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo, which may never resurface and might be in a very different form if it does.) My verdict:

Only six films that I'd call actively good, though admittedly my "less than good" group includes several of that year's most acclaimed titles. 'Twas always thus.