"a biting and often hilarious satire that doesn’t shy away from excess"

Directed by Karim Aïnouz and written by Efthimis Filippou, Rosebush Pruning is a biting and often hilarious satire that doesn’t shy away from excess. Loosely inspired by a novel by Marco Bellocchio, the film is set in a luxurious villa under the Catalonian sun, where four American siblings live off inherited wealth, completely detached from the outside world.

Jack, Ed, Anna and Robert spend their days orbiting one another, obsessed with appearances, designer clothes, and emotional validation. Their blind father exists more as a burden than a presence. When Jack, the eldest and emotional anchor of the family, announces he is moving out to live with his girlfriend, the fragile balance collapses. What follows is a slow, chaotic unravelling of family myths, buried truths, and long-standing lies surrounding their mother’s death.

The film leans fully into the absurd, and that’s where it works best. It’s sharp, exaggerated, and often uncomfortable. Some moments are genuinely funny in a dark, biting way. At times, it brought to mind the cruel humor and class tension of films like Parasite, though filtered through Filippou’s very specific, unsettling sensibility.

The cast is one of the film’s strongest elements. Pamela Anderson, Callum Turner, Riley Keough, Jamie Bell, Lukas Gage and Elena Anaya all contribute to the film’s sharp tone, fully embracing its absurdity and excess. Their performances give the film energy and rhythm, even when the characters themselves are deeply unpleasant.

Rosebush Pruning is not subtle, and it doesn’t try to be. It’s provocative, loud, and at times deliberately excessive. But beneath the absurdity, there’s a clear anger toward privilege, emotional dependency, and inherited power. 

Uncomfortable, entertaining, and sharply performed.