'Rosebush Pruning' Review
- Jaylan Salah
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
Release Date: 08/14/26 [Cinemas]
Genre: Comedy. Drama. Thriller.
MPAA: Not Rated.
Distributor: MUBI.
The Verdict: A Mistake
Karim Aïnouz’s new satirical, tragicomedy Rosebush Pruning is a stylistic mess. It is about a haughty, rich family that is borderline incestuous, but they all hate each other’s guts. It’s nothing no one has seen before, but here it is done through saturated colors and overt mention of luxury fashion brands. They are mourning the murder of their mother, and welcoming a new addition to the family, a “part of the crowd” girl, the oldest son Jack’s (Jamie Bell) girlfriend Martha (Elle Fanning),
There’s been a highly unnecessary reliance in modern films on fashion and style;; it’s not subtle, but more like an on-the-nose, vivid description of wealth and fashion that brings to mind the shallow consumerism of Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City. With Alice Winocour’s Couture coming to mind, it’s no longer a showcase of the costume designer or stylist’s mastery in embroidering a whole world out of fabric, but a showcase of the elitism of such films. It alienates viewers, not because of the complex narrative structure but more of how these films are made purely for the “elite”, an aggressive exclusivity that presents a subgenre of films for those who understand, like a wink aimed at a particular subset of the moviegoing population who would secretly smile at a Bottega Veneta mention and the dismissal of Martha’s dress as a lesser worthy brand “COS or Zara”. That’s not to say that costume designer Bina Daigeler has done any less of a job. The costume choices are excellent and, in some way, represent their individual styles and color schemes. Red is a prominent presence in the color gradient of this feature, and the director has excellently woven it into the narrative to emphasize the saturated life of excess that this pretentious, rich family lives.
There’s a reason why in other social media reactions on other films -most recently One Night Only- some people described Callum Turner as blank and stoic. Watching him here, it’s absolutely understandable why he would be described as such. Because Turner is no easy actor, he’s not the kind of actor to pass on for a regular guy, even if he does look less movie star-ish than his other peers, with their glam and larger-than-life off-screen personas. Turner is subtle, but he has that dark, indecipherable aura and mystique, like a puzzle that can’t be solved in one sitting. As Edward, he’s the best of all the male cast, and he oozes charisma and screen presence, even when he’s not saying anything. He can even hold his ground opposite more veteran actors like Bell, and his energy with Riley Keough and Lukas Gage is wild and infectious.
Now, the narration. There’s an overreliance in modern films on narration to feed audiences particular aspects about the movie. A way of letting the audience in on a joke perhaps? An unreliable way of telling the story. It became exhausting and doesn’t always work. In this case, it runs counter to Aïnouz’s work and to what he is trying to represent visually. But what do the wolves represent? Another attempt of the rich feeding the poor so that they don’t rebel against them and eat them? This concept has been worn out like an old, damp rug in many recent films. Sadly, Aïnouz’s vision doesn’t add anything new. Emerald Fennell has done it all, and way better in Saltburn; even the menstruation-licking scenes are sexier in that one.
Rosebush Pruning is a bizarre mess. Does it work? For seekers of the visually delicious and the aesthetically innovative. Apart from that, it doesn’t have much to offer except that we need to see Turner in more complex roles rather than wasting him away at sexless, detergent-friendly sex comedies with zero sex scenes.
