A few seconds.
That’s how long deja vu lasts. Flashes of displacement. It’s the feeling you’ve been here before, you’ve said this already, you’ve already felt this way. It’s such a sudden feeling, thank goodness it only lasts for a few seconds.
Imagine experiencing deja vu for your entire lifeline.
That’s the idea in “Restart,” an EC student production written by Alex Calderon and Maurice A. Jones, and directed by Jason Palines.
Though it possesses an arresting story, incompleteness is the film’s major problem.
It begins with the birth of Kelly-our male protagonist, so called because his mother wanted a girl so badly. Kelly’s dad is a coke addict; his mom, mentally unstable. Details aside, Kelly is eventually left to fend for himself in life. One day he meets a girl, Maria, at the park. She becomes his life and his savior. In time, a mysterious man shoots him in the head.
Kelly is dead. For a while, anyway. Before the audience knows it, Kelly is alive again; he has “restarted.” As the film explains, he hasn’t been reincarnated. His life is exactly the same as it was the first time. His parents are still deadbeats, he still finds Maria at the park and he still gets it in the head.
It becomes a cycle: living, dying, living, dying. Soon, Kelly figures it out and he makes an attempt to change things for the better in the long run. At least, he tries to.
“Restart’s” concept is definitely different. The themes involved (destiny, morality and yes, deja vu) may sound run of the mill, but the film manages to twist such mundane subjects so that they become as perplexing and unconventional as storylines come these days.
It’s unfortunate that the film is so short. The plot and all of the intricacies that come with it is crammed into a short 40-minute session. As a result, “Restart” seems rushed and incomplete.
The film leaves the audience begging for more.
The ending to a more thorough film would punctuate a great, explorative journey; in “Restart” it only reminds the audience that there was so much left to be discovered.
Another drawback to the film is the stiff acting that leaves the audience with the sense that certain emotions to the plot weren’t thoroughly conveyed.
To tackle those ideas visually, aurally and to squeeze them into the myriad emotions we’ve all been familiar with at one point or another is simply a feat.
It would be a shame to leave “Restart” the way it is. It is to be hoped that Calderon, Jones and Palines decide to revisit this fascinating morsel in the future and give it another go. Now that’s a restart.
On Screen
What: “Restart”: A story of a young man as he goes through life’s complexities and finds love, only to have it taken away from him.
Rated: Not Rated
Starring: EC students Jason Ellefson, Joy Haven, Gina Candido, Josh McClenley, Maurice Jones
Bottom Line: This first major production by the Cinema Arts Club presents philosophical question about life and love.
