![Rosebush Pruning Sandra Hüller, Channing Tatum, Amy Adams & Callum Turner Have Films At 76th Berlinale [Full Lineup]](https://cdn.theplaylist.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/06114448/Rosebush-Pruning.jpg "Rosebush Pruning Sandra Hüller, Channing Tatum, Amy Adams & Callum Turner Have Films At 76th Berlinale [Full Lineup]")
The very first glimpse of Karim Aïnouz’s long-gestating “Rosebush Pruning” is a bold title card in bright red and yellow. The two colors guide the story’s visual language, quietly and consistently evoking the old Karl Marx quote: “Capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.”
Surrounded by years of speculation and following a series of recasts and delays, “Rosebush Pruning” arrived at the prestigious Berlin Film Festival under a fair shroud of secrecy. All that was known for a long time was that the project would loosely adapt Italian auteur Marco Bellocchio’s 1985 feature debut “Fists in the Pocket,” but details were largely kept under wraps.
![‘Rosebush Pruning’ Review: Karim Aïnouz Meets Greek Weird Wave in Uneven But Fun Eat-The-Rich Satire [Berlin]](https://cdn.theplaylist.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/14210553/Riley-Keough-Lukas-Gage-Callum-Turner.-Photo-credit-Felix-Dickinson-1024x622.jpg)
Brazilian-Algerian filmmaker Aïnouz built his career on a penchant for unpredictability, traversing genres from documentary to erotic thrillers, yet always anchored by a persistent curiosity for the engines of desire. Largely drawn to complex female characters, it was no surprise the director found inspiration in the real-life legend of Catherine Parr for his first English-language project, 2023’s Jude Law-starring historical drama “Firebrand.” For his sophomore international foray, Aïnouz steps away from the British monarchy but stays close to the elites.
Like “Fireband,” “Rosebush Pruning” still revolves around a repulsive patriarch, Tracy Letts’s unnamed Father. The blind man lives in a lavish mansion in the lush Spanish hills alongside four grown children: Callum Turner’s Edward, Riley Keough’s Anna, Lukas Gage’s Robert, and Jamie Bell’s Jack. The latter is by far the most well-adjusted of the dysfunctional foursome, so when he decides to move out of the twisted family quarters and into a new home with his guitarist girlfriend Martha (Elle Fanning) just two short years after the mysterious death of their matriarch (Pamela Anderson), the already precarious family balance teeters dangerously close to mayhem.
![‘Rosebush Pruning’ Review: Karim Aïnouz Meets Greek Weird Wave in Uneven But Fun Eat-The-Rich Satire [Berlin]](https://cdn.theplaylist.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/14210555/Pamela-Anderson.-Photo-credit-Felix-Dickinson-1024x633.jpg)
“Rosebush Pruning” is an Aïnouz film, but borrows much more recognizable traits from its scriptwriter, Efthimis Filippou. A longtime collaborator of Yorgos Lanthimos, Filippou is one of the defining names of the Greek Weird Wave, and all the key traits of the influential European film movement are also present in this all-too-modern multinational co-production:
Characters exhibiting increasingly strange behavior, deliberately stilted acting, and on-your-face dark comedy. As the satire unfurls, it’s easy to refer back to the writer’s previous work with Lanthimos, from the incestuous tendencies of an isolated, close-knit family of “Dogtooth,” to the romantic paralysis of “The Lobster.”
Half a century ago, “Fists in the Pocket” catapulted a then-newcomer, Bellocchio, into the prestigious pantheon of Italian auteurs that already housed names like Bernardo Bertolucci and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Alas, while Bellocchio’s seminal film had the advantage of the unguarded, unrestrained daringness of a first-time director, Aïnouz’s offering unravels as a frustrating simulacrum of such freedom. It is loud and brashy and out there, but never quite provocative, a polished eat-the-rich manifesto that, produced at such a pivotal moment of capitalist-fuelled sociopolitical collapse, ends up feeling dated in its regurgitation of commonplace discourse packaged for the BlueSky age.
Still, there is pleasure to be had in seeing a committed cast wrestle and savour the script’s oddness. Turner delivers an accomplished, if not particularly exceptional, performance as the story’s primary narrator, a gullible young man orbiting the madness of his kinship, with the key advantage of not sharing the whiplash-inducing penchant for drama of his more flamboyant middle siblings. His Edward is a solid entry to an interesting, diverse career streak, following Mark Jenkin’s Venice darling “Rose of Nevada” and David Freyne’s charming A24 romcom “Eternity.”
![‘Rosebush Pruning’ Review: Karim Aïnouz Meets Greek Weird Wave in Uneven But Fun Eat-The-Rich Satire [Berlin]](https://cdn.theplaylist.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/14210557/Callum-Turner.-Photo-credit-Felix-Dickinson-1024x621.jpg)
Yet, “Rosebush Pruning” clearly belongs to two standouts: a recent first-time Oscar nominee in Fanning and a less illustrious but brilliantly cast Gage. The former excels as a girl-next-door outlier all too willing to circumvent the pedestrianness of shock in favor of the rewards of unshakeable obstination, while the latter taps into the tawdryness of some of his backlog for a much riskier bet: Ryan Murphy-ficating arthouse European cinema. Within the very specific context of this balls-to-the-walls satire, it works a charm.
Frequent Aïnouz collaborator Hélène Louvart seesaws between capturing this group of beautiful people through slowly drawn-out shots that echo the languor of their long, lazy days and frenzied sequences timed to the big beats of pop music. The renowned French cinematographer mirrors the script’s bluntness with compositions that speak directly to the gnarly nature of betrayal, poised to ruin the dysfunctional family from the moment the first shades of crimson red touch the screen. It is all a little too on the nose, but done so with a welcome if slightly overplayed sheen. [B-]
Rafa Sales Ross is a Brazilian film journalist, critic and programmer currently living in Scotland. She contributes to Variety, BBC Culture, Sight & Sound among others, and can often be seen writing about Latin American Cinema and explorations of death and desire.
