The Restless

Damien is a painter; he has a studio and lives in a house in the south with his wife Leila and their son. In the good stretches he produces a great deal, talks a great deal and does not sleep at night. Then he does not stop. He buys a car, buys a boat, makes plans and drags everyone along. Leila hides the medication, takes him to the doctor, has him admitted. Damien recovers and is quiet for a while; then the same cycle starts again. The boy watches them both. At some point Leila has to decide whether she can bear it. Joachim Lafosse directs. Leila Bekhti, Damien Bonnard, Gabriel Merz Chammah and Patrick Descamps are in the cast. It is a French and Belgian co-production. The film screened in the main competition at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. Lafosse knows the subject from his own family; his father lived with bipolar disorder and the director has called the film personal. The narrative does not name the illness for a long time; the diagnosis is spoken for the first time only after an hour. The matter it treats is the limit of the person giving care; the film puts not the patient but the one beside him at the centre. Damien Bonnard plays the manic phase without exaggeration and never makes the character ridiculous. The film does not explain the painting by the illness and stays out of that cliche. The narrative gives room to the child's view as well. The ending brings no solution. Its limit is fatigue; the narrative is built on repeating cycles and is heavy to watch. Who it is for: viewers who like family drama and films about mental illness. Who it is not for: it is suffocating, repetitive, and the ending unresolved.