ROSEBUSH PRUNING: Karim Aïnouz turns wealth, beauty and family into a vicious dark comedy

September 13, 2026 9hotness 0likes 0comments

ROSEBUSH PRUNING: Karim Aïnouz turns wealth, beauty and family into a vicious dark comedy

Everyone in Rosebush Pruning is beautiful, impeccably dressed and surrounded by the kind of sumptuous setting that seems made for social media. Yet the luxury is only a mirage. Beneath its polished surface, Karim Aïnouz's new feature film finds a family consumed by suffering, trauma and a toxic, parasitic and incestuous attachment to one another.

A family built to prevent escape

The film's fragile equilibrium begins to shift when Jack (Jamie Bell), the eldest brother, forms a relationship with a young and pretty musician (Elle Fanning). For the first time, one of the children appears ready to exist beyond the family home. Jack considers packing his bags, but nobody wants him to leave and disturb the routine that keeps the household together.

Jack's possible departure also brings the family's hidden history closer to the surface. The mother (Pamela Anderson) has disappeared and is said to have been devoured by wolves. The remaining family members live in total opulence, free from material concerns, yet none of them dares to abandon the cocoon or truly begin an independent life. As Jack imagines increasingly wild ways to break free, the veneer of splendour cracks and the secrets behind each child's particular form of twistedness emerge.

Ed's strange way into the household

Aïnouz introduces this sealed-off world through Ed (Callum Turner), a handsome, wealthy young man who still lives with his family. His closest connection is with an elderly man, a friendship that feels strange, suggestive and almost unreal. Even that unusual bond, however, seems less extraordinary than Ed's everyday existence inside the family home, where he lives with Jack, Robert (Lukas Gage), Anna (Riley Keough) and their father (Tracy Letts), in a sumptuous house isolated from the world.

A pop surface for a vicious satire

The visual design places Rosebush Pruning near films such as Saltburn, which also presents a wealthy family with a morbid side, as well as Dogtooth and Teorema. Aïnouz gives the film a highly polished aesthetic shaped by fashion and advertising imagery. The characters' beauty, clothes and privileged surroundings invite envy, only for the film to reveal the damage hidden beneath them.

The subject matter might suggest a severe family drama, but Aïnouz instead approaches the madness of the rich, their sordid secrets and the destructive effects of trauma through biting, macabre comedy. The pop sensibility is deliberately provocative, and the result may shock or annoy more than a few viewers. Its bold premise and occasional trendy, cynical mannerisms are easier to accept because the film is so confidently executed.

Charm inside the sickness

The international cast supplies much of the film's seductive force. Jamie Bell is handsome and devious, and, as always, perfect in the role. Callum Turner brings an unusual gay character to the screen: naive, poetic and unsettling at the same time. Their charm helps carry the audience through a story that is deliberately sick, transgressive and divisive.