Jamie Bell and Elle Fanning lead a starry cast in Rosebush Pruning, a clumsy satire that offers little fascination into the suffocating lives of a wealthy, dysfunctional family. Directed by Karim Aïnouz and written by Efthimis Filippou, the film is a loose remake of Marco Bellocchio's 1965 film Fists in the Pocket, transplanting the action to a luxurious modernist house in Spain.
The story follows a bizarre extended family: the blind widower father (Tracy Letts), haunted by his wife's death by wolves, and his grown children—highly strung Robert (Lukas Gage), talentless singer-songwriter Anna (Riley Keough), would-be fashionista Ed (Callum Turner), and Jack (Jamie Bell), who has the intimate duty of cleaning his father's teeth nightly. Jack plans to move out with his girlfriend Martha (Elle Fanning), a gifted classical guitarist who nettles Anna.
The film's satire targets capitalism and patriarchy, portraying the rich as creating a next-gen class of useless drones. However, the heavy-handed approach and overworked dramatic effects generate a sense of pointlessness. While there are good performances, particularly from Bell and Fanning, the film tries the patience with its assumption that these characters are seductive or entertaining.
Despite some visual style, Rosebush Pruning fails to earn its dramatic effects, leaving a strange sensation of pointlessness. The satire is pedantic and clumsy, offering little beyond a contrived look at wealthy dysfunction.
