I saw three movies on my fourth day at the festival, but in honor of two of the friends I've made (I'll call them Easy Rider and Less Is More) waiting in one of the many lines I've spent time in this week, I'm going to blog on the third before I write on the second. So today I'll be reviewing Restoration, then my next post will be on Alps, thus saving The Intouchables for sometime after that.
Restoration * * ½
A film is the summation of its parts, but sometimes they just don't add up. Restoration's parts are great in and of themselves, each of them well-crafted like the furniture Fidelmen (its protagonist) restores. The film's sum can't equal its individual qualities though: strong reality-rooted-performances that stray from sensationalism, its fittingly mournful violin-heavy musical score, and a well-written script. Its central problem can be summed up with one word... "emptiness".
The proprietors of said issue are the film's false or empty promises. Opening shots track the daily going-ons of Fidelman and a mysterious young man named Anton whom the film continues to focus on, shrouding him in mystery and utilizing elements of suspense to create a buildup that delivers Restoration's first false promise: that there is to be some big reveal as to who Anton is. Other, better, domestic dramas have employed these same techniques (i.e. when SFF alum I Am Love's camera and score drew attention to the young man who would eventually become Emma's lover), but what was promised through their foreshadowing actually came to pass. In Restoration though, even as Anton comes to work in Fidelman's shop, court his son's pregnant wife, and pose to him a business proposition, barely anything about his identity is revealed, and what little is uncovered is casually thrown into dialogue for the furtherance of the plot.
After the films empty promises regarding Anton, it makes more: As Fidelman grieves the passing of his long-time business-partner, he makes some unexpected discoveries about his past, and as more and more time and weight are applied to them, the audience begins to expect that another big reveal as to the partner's identity is to come, one that will possibly bring closure to Fidelman's grief. Yet again, no pay-off. In James Greenberg's review of this film for The Hollywood Reporter, he praises it and goes on about its buildup to the point where Fidelman "will have to choose between his spiritual son and his biological son". All of that and more may have been present in Restoration, but I was so busy waiting for the film to deliver on its promises, what it did deliver seemed inconsequential.
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