\n\tThe Pet Shop Boys\u2019 synth-pop banger \u201cPaninaro\u201d is a tongue-in-cheek anthem to hedonistic Italian youth culture of the 1980s, its label-whore obsessions and its blithe superficiality. Fittingly, the song\u2019s thumping beat is heard twice, real loud, in Rosebush Pruning, Karim A\u0457nouz\u2019s high-gloss, pitch-dark satire about an American family described by one of its scions as mediocre, vapid egotists, who will never have to work thanks to a large inheritance. Fashion and techno music are the chief interests of the surviving members, one of whom dreams of Bottega Veneta loafers floating in the sky.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Taylor family left New York for the Catalonia coast six years ago and have never quite managed to fit in, which is not surprising given the insular bubble of circle-jerk flattery they have built.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tRosebush Pruning\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n
\tTart and amusing at times but leaves a sour taste.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVenue: Berlin Film Festival (Competition)
Cast: Callum Turner, Riley Keough, Jamie Bell, Lukas Gage, Elena Anaya, Tracy Letts, Elle Fanning, Pamela Anderson
Director: Karim A\u0457nouz
Screenwriter: Efthimis Filippou, inspired by the film Fists in the Pocket, by Marco Bellocchio
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 35 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\tTheir late mother (Pamela Anderson<\/a>) was drawn to the region by her passion for the architecture of Antonio Gaud\u00ed, while her widower (Tracy Letts<\/a>) and their four adult children, Ed (Callum Turner<\/a>), Anna (Riley Keough<\/a>), Jack (Jamie Bell<\/a>) and Robert (Lukas Gage<\/a>), revere it as the birthplace of Crist\u00f3bal Balenciaga. The fact that the Spanish designer was actually from a town in the Basque Country on the opposite coast is likely part of the joke.<\/p>\n \n\tLoosely inspired by Marco Bellocchio<\/a>\u2019s 1965 debut Fists in the Pocket, the scathing takedown of the bourgeoisie that put the Italian director on the map, Rosebush Pruning was penned by Efthimis Filippou. It has a close kinship with the deadpan absurdism of the Greek screenwriter\u2019s collaborations with Yorgos Lanthimos<\/a> on The Lobster<\/a> and especially Dogtooth.<\/p>\n \n\tThe peculiar energy, creepy sexual vibes and deliberate acid reflux of A\u0457nouz\u2019s movie will make it an acquired taste. Or not. What it takes from Bellocchio is primarily the outline of a dysfunctional family of four siblings with a blind parent \u2014 in this case the father, not the mother \u2014 a young man prone to epileptic seizures and a multiple-murder plot that includes a fatal clifftop fall.<\/p>\n \n\tThe objective of the killings, in both cases, is to free the adored eldest brother to break away from the family\u2019s incestuous grip and live with the woman he loves. In the new iteration that would be Jack and his girlfriend Martha (Elle Fanning<\/a>), whose introduction to the Taylors is one of many scenes played out with squirming discomfort.<\/p>\n \n\tGiven that he can\u2019t see, the pervy father (neither parent is named) asks Anna to describe Martha for him, starting with her handbag \u2014 \u201cIs it Bottega, or not?\u201d he demands to know \u2014 and continuing with her breasts. Bristling with jealousy, Anna calls them \u201caverage, at best,\u201d then proceeds to break down her outfit, judging the dress to be from a premium fast-fashion brand like Zara or Cos, and correctly identifying the luxury items of the handbag and a Cartier ring as gifts from Jack. No one mentions the term \u201cgold-digger,\u201d but they are all thinking it.<\/p>\n \n\tNot even Ed\u2019s bizarre \u201cwelcome to the family\u201d spiel causes Martha to bolt. Hilariously, he reassures her that sadness and disappointment are only temporary by recounting his search for an impossible-to-find Comme des Gar\u00e7ons bag, which turned up online and was gone before he could iron out a credit card glitch. He wept for an entire day, but then scored an even better bag from Raf Simons, made of more luxurious leather. Turner manages to put across this supreme shallowness with total sincerity.<\/p>\n \n\t(As a supremely shallow person who spends an inordinate amount of time and money scrolling through sites like Mr. Porter, SSENCE and Editorialist for luxury menswear markdowns, I have to confess I found this funny. Others might not.)<\/p>\n \n\tOne reason Martha isn\u2019t put off is possibly that she\u2019s not much different. While chafing at Jack\u2019s hesitance to commit, she nods to the massive chunk of real estate porn with glorious sea views that they have just toured with the broker. \u201cI\u2019m sick of having to beg for basic things!\u201d she huffs.<\/p>\n \n\tMaybe this material \u2014 and certainly this knockout ensemble \u2014 could have delivered a movie with a less rarefied tone, if indeed the filmmakers were interested in that. But Rosebush Pruning is not funny enough to get away with its abrasiveness or make its unsympathetic characters palatable. The heady sensuality of A\u0457nouz\u2019s best films (Invisible Life<\/a>, Madame Sat\u00e3) is somewhat smothered by the cold cerebral mischief of Filippou\u2019s writing. It makes the movie seem counterfeit \u2014 way more Yorgos than Karim, but second-rate Yorgos.<\/p>\n \n\tThat\u2019s not to say the film is ever dull. Ed likes to invent proverbs and sayings, and the title pertains to one of the more coherent of them \u2014\u00a0\u201cPeople love roses. Families are rosebushes. Rosebushes need pruning.\u201d The vicious means by which that pruning happens and the underlying abusive motivations for it provide intrigue. If you\u2019re wondering why Mrs. Taylor\u2019s teeth are so unnaturally white, don\u2019t worry, a sicko explanation will be forthcoming, as will the nasty particulars of Mr. Taylor\u2019s nightly tooth-brushing ritual.<\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s a kick to watch Keough\u2019s Anna in baby blue go-go boots get high on the sexual frisson between her and pretty much the entire family. She\u2019s funny flirting with the politely distanced local butcher and complaining afterwards to Jack that he was hitting on her. Gage\u2019s Robert is also no slouch in the come-on department, gushing over Jack\u2019s appearance and enticing him by wearing women\u2019s lingerie and doing you don\u2019t want to know what else. (Marco Bellocchio certainly never had anyone chewing on his brother\u2019s cumsock.)<\/p>\n \n\tBell and Turner expertly convey the charisma of Jack and Ed while also revealing that there\u2019s something a little unsavory about them both. Ed is seen at intervals on a mic, practicing his imitation of Jack\u2019s voice by repeating the words likely to be engraved on his tombstone: \u201cEdward Taylor, 1991 to 2025.\u201d Almost every bit of weird shit that happens foreshadows a later development. That includes the family\u2019s monthly offering of a sheep carcass in the forest to keep the wolves that supposedly tore Mrs. Taylor apart from killing some other poor unfortunate.<\/p>\n \n\tThat\u2019s one of many visually striking sequences shot by talented French cinematographer H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Louvart, its lush darkness contrasting with the dazzling color and light that fill the widescreen frame elsewhere. Matthew Herbert\u2019s score is highly effective, notably in the first wolf scene, where it builds to a molto agitato orchestral hysteria. And Bina Daigeler\u2019s costumes are a hoot, ostentatiously fashionable and expensive and sexy. (Gage scores the best fuckboy mesh shirt since Franz Rogowski in Passages<\/a>.)<\/p>\n \n\tThe outcome of the family\u2019s skulduggery, revealed over the end credits, should be a lip-smacking wicked delight. But there are too few grounding remnants of humanity in the characters to make us share in the shamelessly cynical pleasures of ruthless victory. There\u2019s no shortage of stylish craft here and much to enjoy in the performances, but ultimately, Rosebush Pruning is too glib to work, leaving only an acrid aftertaste.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pet Shop Boys\u2019 synth-pop banger \u201cPaninaro\u201d is a tongue-in-cheek anthem to hedonistic Italian youth culture of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[8198,216423,191249,217179,36152,25102,88,217923,218368,49364,218369,35217,56842,138464,75805],"class_list":{"0":"post-470198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-berlin","9":"tag-berlin-2026","10":"tag-berlin-film-festival","11":"tag-berlin-film-festival-reviews","12":"tag-callum-turner","13":"tag-elle-fanning","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-jamie-bell","16":"tag-karim-ainouz","17":"tag-lukas-gage","18":"tag-marco-bellocchio","19":"tag-pamela-anderson","20":"tag-riley-keough","21":"tag-tracy-letts","22":"tag-yorgos-lanthimos"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}