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On the surface, Restless is a movie looking for its niche audience -- Jewish cineastes conflicted about the role of Israel in the world.
But on the strength of one performance, it becomes an unforgettable character sketch and a story accessible to anybody confused about the notion of "home."
That performance belongs to Moshe Ivgy as "Moshe," a punch-drunk New Yorker, street poet and vendor of cheesy souvenir tchotchkes, a man whose vitality makes him catnip to women despite his age, and whose baggage is anger born of unfulfilled dreams.
We see both Moshes in introductory scenes as he is beaten up over a bad debt, blithely receives news about the death of his ex-wife in Israel, and has sex (and then homemade soup) with a woman who means nothing to him. Flash ahead to an Israeli immigre bar, where much of the entertainment and the chatter is in Hebrew. There Moshe is quickly wearing out his welcome getting drunk on credit and is on the verge of getting physically ejected by the shiksa barmaid Yolanda (Karen Young), a sad and angry ex-Gulf War soldier and single mom working out of desperation in a place where she doesn't even speak the working language.
Moshe's eviction is staved off, however, when he drunkenly takes a dare, and goes onstage to deliver an impromptu monologue, full of off-the-cuff metaphors, about the lost promise of Israel. The rant both delights and angers the crowd, and a star is born -- in the grittiest New York sense of the word. Soon the place is filling up for readings by the "mad Hebrew poet."
Cut away to Jerusalem, where Moshe's equally angry son Tzach (Ran Danker) has made a name for himself as the best sniper in the Israeli army, and imagines his hated father in the crosshairs of every shot he takes.
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Danker, apparently an Israeli movie heartthrob, doesn't match Igvy's acting chops, but Tzach's story does provide effective counterbalance to Moshe's. Almost inevitably, his irrational dedication to his job produces a tragedy, and Tzach is removed from his posting and as rootless as his father. Their stories now parallel, he sullenly heads off to meet him.
Tzach has his own adventures, including a potentially dangerous drunken night with a bunch of outwardly-friendly Palestinians -- a scenario director Amos Kollek hones to a sinister edge. But it's Moshe who stirs the emotional drink -- having a tender affair with a vivacious, aged widow (Phyllis Somerville) and attempting redemption by starting anew as a father with Yolanda and her son.
Moshe's coarse poetry reflects the events in his life -- initially a betrayer of a country that he screams betrayed its promise (and seemingly betrayed in turn by the promise of the American Dream), his discourse eventually becomes bittersweet and tinged with both regret and a kind of love for the piece of desert he once called home.
Restless is a feast of flavours and emotions, that is at once open-ended and redemptive. Like its central character, it repeatedly courts disaster, but never loses hope.
(This film is rated 14-A)