Recently premiering at Berlinale, Karim Aïnouz’s Efthimis Filippou-scripted satire Rosebush Pruning brings together Callum Turner, Riley Keough, Jamie Bell, Lukas Gage, Elena Anaya, Tracy Letts, Elle Fanning, and Pamela Anderson in a contemporary reimagining of Marco Bellocchio’s Fists in the Pocket. Ahead of MUBI’s release later this year, they’ve now debuted the first trailer.
Here’s the synopsis: “Underneath the Catalonian sun, a rich white American family lives in hedonistic isolation, seeking love and validation through one another, their designer wardrobes and pop music. When an outsider infiltrates the family, buried tensions surface and blood ties are severed.”
Rory O’Connor said in his Berlinale review, “Moulding cruel or nihilistic characters into darkly attractive protagonists requires a deceptively delicate touch. We’ve grown so used to seeing it done effortlessly that a movie like Rosebush Pruning can perhaps be some useful reminder of how difficult it is to pull off. The latest from Brazilian sensualist Karim Aïnouz (of Futuro Beach and The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmão fame) spends so much of its swift runtime affecting a transgressive atmosphere that it never quite gets around to making its caustic characters compelling or providing an outsider who might warrant our sympathy or concern. Why play funny games, you start to wonder, if there are no normies worth terrorizing?”
See the trailer and poster below.
