Young, pretty Annabel (Mia Wasikowska) is dying of cancer. But the young, prettier Enoch (Henry Hopper – son of Dennis) lifts her spirits by letting Annabel accompany him to the funerals of strangers. Always a laugh, that.

Whimsy overload, I know, a kind of new-century Harold and Maude with both lovers being death-obsessed Harold. Jason Lew's cloying script is a minefield of quirk and dark shadows. Did I mention Enoch's parents died in a car crash? And wait for Hiroshi (Ryo Kase), Enoch's BFF before Annabel – he's the ghost of a kamikaze pilot. You heard me.

Before you stop reading this review and label Restless a must to avoid, let me remind you that the director is Gus Van Sant, who knows young love like nobody's business. Check out My Own Private Idaho and Paranoid Park or any of the mesmerizing indie films Van Sant directs between mainstream Oscar projects such as Good Will Hunting and Milk.

Van Sant and his longtime cinematographer, Harris Savides, can caress the faces of youth with a poet's eye for beauty and pain. And the two stars, shot amid the splendors of Van Sant's beloved Oregon, make an ideal canvas. Wasikowska, from Alice in Wonderland to Jane Eyre, is an actress of translucent expressiveness. And Hopper has his father's brooding intensity and a quicksilver humor all his own. They are both so good, I suggest you dive into the story unfolding in their eyes rather than the banal one in the script.

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“Is It True”

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."