Restless review – relatable real-life horror in nightmare neighbour thriller

The Guardian

31-03-2025

First-time feature director Jed Hart starts with a great premise for a low-budget psychological thriller about a very real subject, and he gets good performances from his three actors. Hart's direction is strong, but it's better than his script; for me the movie, having established its realist credentials, is let down by a completely unreal and silly ending.
Nicky, played by Lyndsey Marshal, is a hard-working agency nurse who is all alone, a single mum to a son away at uni. She lives a lonely but reasonably content life, listening to classical music, doing yoga and vaguely dating a clueless but nice man called Kevin, played by Barry Ward. But all this is utterly destroyed when a lairy and aggressive guy moves into the property next door and has loud parties with his mates every night until four in the morning; this is the unspeakable Deano (Aston McAuley), who responds with hostile contempt to Nicky's timidly polite requests to turn the music down – along with some belligerent self-pity: 'I've had a tough couple of years with my mental health.'
Things escalate from there and Nicky discovers that the police won't help because it's a matter for the council, who themselves have very limited power to intervene, and other neighbours can't or won't get involved as the noise doesn't affect them. This is a horror-film situation that really does happen in real life, and Hart certainly gives a sense of how it oppresses the victim but the wish-fulfilment finale, involving a very convenient discovery, is just too glib. Still, Hart's direction is fluent and confident.
Restless is in UK and Irish cinemas from 4 April.