{"id":685087,"date":"2026-07-10T23:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T23:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/685087\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T23:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T23:16:10","slug":"rosebush-pruning-review-smooth-glassy-impenetrable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/685087\/","title":{"rendered":"Rosebush Pruning review \u2014 ‘Smooth, glassy, impenetrable’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Family ties \u2014 which are closer than most \u2014 are tested when eldest brother Jack (Jamie Bell) tries to bring his new girlfriend Martha (Elle Fanning) into the fold.<\/p>\n

Efthimis\u00a0Filippou\u00a0has\u00a0been responsible for\u00a0some of Yorgos Lanthimos\u2019 darkest material, co-writing most of the Oscar-winner\u2019s bleak satirical oeuvre (Dogtooth<\/a>, The Lobster<\/a>, and Kinds Of Kindness<\/a> to name but a few.) With this Catalonia-set family affair he continues his provocative streak, penning the screenplay for\u00a0a gaudy, hollow study of a wealthy father and children\u2019s taboo inner workings inspired by Marco Bellocchio\u2019s Italian\u00a0\u201965 classic\u00a0Fists\u00a0In\u00a0The\u00a0Pocket.<\/p>\n

\"Rosebush<\/p>\n

Director Karim A\u00efnouz shepherds a heavyweight cast through the film\u2019s thorny heart, which finds the relocated family patched back together after the violent death of their mother (Pamela Anderson), killed\u00a0by wolves. Now, they face further upheaval as Jack\u00a0(Jamie Bell), the family pillar, attempts\u00a0to unstick himself from his socially aloof father\u00a0(Tracy Letts)\u00a0and rabid grown-up siblings, while introducing his girlfriend Martha (Elle Fanning).<\/p>\n

Of the horny brood,\u00a0Callum Turner is a standout…<\/p>\n

Of the horny brood,\u00a0Callum Turner is a standout as the periphery-hovering, Ripley<\/a>-type middle brother Ed, as is Riley Keough as their entertainingly petulant sister Anna. Upon learning that Martha is a gifted guitarist, Anna brings out her own guitar to strum in an act of churlish defiance. The film is spotted with these wry moments, which feel earned amid the wretched dynamic of the ensemble, mostly shown from the perspectives of Jack and Ed \u2014 the former determined to start life anew at a violent price, the latter sinking further into domestic dysfunction to a shocking degree.<\/p>\n

Yet the stilted material is\u00a0too\u00a0committed to shock and opulence at a time when eat-the-rich fables are already at cat-swinging capacity. The ensemble\u2019s collective vapidness is taken too literally, with the script never bothering to dip below the surface and interrogate the messy, sad malaise just out of sight. Instead,\u00a0we\u2019re\u00a0encouraged to float, satisfied, in the film\u2019s sea of catwalk-ready costumes, alluring architecture, overworked metaphors and strangely sterile brutality. Even with the body-count rising,\u00a0however, fluids and flora are not enough to make this rosebush rise above the rest.<\/p>\n

This dark comedy\u2019s aesthetic glossiness seeps over the story\u2019s jagged edges, leaving a smooth, glassy and impenetrable movie with nothing new to say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Family ties \u2014 which are closer than most \u2014 are tested when eldest brother Jack (Jamie Bell) tries…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":685088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-685087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/685088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}