Excellent, smart action film.

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

NOTE: The spoiler is in the fourth paragraph.It's not that Restless is badly acted- just that a story about a WW2 spy should be a lot more fun than this two-parter TV movie, totalling three hours.There are two timelines: the present day, which is the seventies, and the early forties. In the 'present day', Ruth Gilmartin (Michelle Dockery) is told by her mother Sally (Charlotte Rampling) that she is not Sally but instead is Eva Delectorskaya, a former British spy during WW2. In the forties, Eva (Hayley Atwell) is recruited by charismatic spymaster Lucas Romer (Rufus Sewell) who naturally she ends up falling in love with.Whilst real life espionage is probably not like a Bond movie and is closer to the mundane work here, full of innocent code phrases and staring out of a window for hours spying on someone, it makes the pace drag. The espionage becomes more exciting in Episode 2 but it's not really worth sitting through Episode 1, which is a bit of a waste of time unless you want to see the romancing of Lucas and Eva.Were this a normal length TV movie, that would have helped considerably as there is a lot of filler here. It also means that the viewer might be more forgiving of the various clichés- it's blindingly obvious that Lucas is going to seduce Eva and that he will be a traitor. The fact that this does not occur to her at all makes Eva come across as stupid. Rather than focusing on her espionage skills, she comes across more like an ordinary woman motivated by love.There are hints in the second episode of some politically relevant parallels with WW2 in the seventies but this is not explored. Restless is too superficial to be interesting but not superficial enough to enjoy as a pulpy spy story. I am aware that it is based on a novel by William Boyd but the filmmakers needed to either make it intellectual or entertainment and they did neither.

The description of the three hour, two episode drama is misleading. The daughter doesn't find out her mother is not who she thought she was. Instead she is given a manuscript containing the complete story of her mother's life. Most of the film is what Hayley Atwell's character did in the 40's, with little that makes any sense in the 1970's "present".Now, the story is interesting, a sort of cloak and dagger British Intelligence outfit that is tasked with convincing the Americans to join the war effort in favour of Europe. Sexy Eva is recruited, trained and unleashed upon unsuspecting foreign agents. However, as many have noticed, the execution of the plot survives only to the most superficial scrutiny. But it is damn ridiculous to complain about the inconsistencies, though, if we liked the movie. It's not like we don't know it's a film.What does strike as slightly annoying is the length of the feature. Certainly this could have been more concise in the length of a normal film or more detailed and watchable in a three or four episode miniseries. As such, you can't wait for it to be over, waiting for the climactic ending that, alas, doesn't really come. Everything is explained in the end, but with a fizzling finale that holds no power and creates no emotion.Beautiful Hayley Atwell and Rufus Seawell both made the film bearable due to their performance. Perhaps it would have been better to just discard the 1970's story and just tell the 1940 one from beginning to end. The Americans would have done so, ended the story with her escaping and quickly preparing a sequel. :)

This was poor and left me grieving for BBC Drama - who is going to make quality television if the BBC can't? It had a lot of the right ingredients - if they were re-making The Singing Detective, then Rufus Sewell would be a perfect choice, so it was only right that Michael Gambon played Sewell's older self. But the pace was slow, the plot became nonsense (was it perhaps originally a six part that was then cut down?), and the dialogue was awful. They left the worst til last though, the ending was truly dire leaving me regretting that I had spent 3 hours getting there - God knows how the actors and crew felt when they saw it, after all it took them a lot longer.Why is this 4 and not 1, because I like the genre.

EPISODE #1:Another British spy drama starring some legendary British actors but also some newcomers to acting also from Britian. Set in the 70's the story is about Ruth Gilmartin (Michelle Dockery) who along with her son goes to meet her mother Sally Gilmartin (Charlotte Rampling). On this visit she finds out the truth that Sally's real name is Eva Delectorskaya (Hayley Atwell) and she was a spy for the British during the times of world war II. We then get flashbacks to the 30's-40's seeing the training Eva went through to become a spy because her brother was killed. While going through the training she meets Lucas Romer (Rufus Sewell) who becomes her closest Allie while being a spy. After one mission goes wrong and a dutch spy gets killed the thriller aspect of the story kicks into full gear. While we see these flashbacks going on back in present time Ruth still in shock now about the truth of her mother she agrees to help her mother stay safe while trying to get help from past friends of her mother. At the end of the first part of the miniseries we get our first look at the older Lucas Romer (Michael Gambon) as Ruth try's to get help from him for her mother. An impressive cast lead this story. The film is like a typical British spy thriller based in the past but the two connected times lines in something different for a change. The best performances in this first part came from Hayley Atwell and Charlotte Rampling who play the same character but in different points of the character's life. We were left with a cliff hanger with the reveal of Lucas Romer who is needed to keep Sally/Eva alive. Every detail in the clothes, sets and direction was spot in for the period that each part of the story was filmed. An impressive first part can only lead to a great conclusion in part two.EPISODE GRADE: B+ (MVP: Hayley Atwell)EPISODE #2:Part 2 and the final part of the miniseries. Still split between the two time periods we find out more about Eva's days in the states as a spy. In present times Ruth sits down to interview Lucas, when she asks some of her questions he becomes suspicious and ends the interview after asking more questions then she got to ask him. In the past we see Eva was made sleep with someone on a mission and she successfully did it but did not feel good about selling herself to him. Eva's other mission in the states involved her going to Albuquerque, New Mexico to get a package along with the $5,000 she was given to hand off to someone. She gets the package and looks at it to find some mistakes on the package. When she gives some of the money she returns back to her motel room only to have a gun held to her. The gun man takes the money off her but also makes her take her clothes off before leaving. She then drives them and once they stop she takes her chance to get free by stabbing him in the eye. She then covers her footsteps by making it took like a car crash. Eva believes she was sold but when she meets with Lucas he tells her she did better then anyone could have expected. Eva still worried she was set up now has the idea she made a mistake after Morris tells her she might have, however when Eva goes for a meeting with Morris she finds out the news that he committed suicide. This makes Eva come up with a plan to escape to Canada so she asks Sylvia to come with her. When they get to the border Eva escapes but Slyvia staying behind is killed. Once Eva gets to Canada she hears USA is know in the war also she has met her future husband. Eva escapes to London with her new husband. She meets Alfie in London finding out Angus was killed as well. During the London bombings Eva kills Alfie and also has to run from Lucas scared he might kill her. This ends the past and we return to modern times where Ruth is starting to worry about what her mother has been doing lately. At the end of the episode Eva finally confronts Lucas once again. She reveals that she now knows that Lucas was the spy of all spies. She does not kill him but once she leaves her injects himself to kill himself. Eva still questions revealing Ruth was her daughter but Ruth tells her not to worry. Once again the performances by Charlotte Ramplinbg and Hayley Atwell were very strong. Michael Gambon and Michelle Dockery were also great. The production value was also as strong and the thriller aspect to this part was even more thrilling then the first part. This was a great miniseries overall.EPISODE GRADE: B+ (MVP: Charlotte Rampling)