There is a quiet brutality Rosebush Pruning. It lingers throughout the film, directed with a near clinical attention to detail. The film trims away excess sentimentality and leaves something raw, exposed, and slightly unsettling. Set against a backdrop that feels both grand and suffocating at the same time. The story unfolds like a slow fracture beneath the polished surface of inherited wealth.

In a Catalonian villa that feels more like a cage than sanctuary, four American siblings, Jack, Ed, Anna and Robert find themselves in a state of adolescence, insulated by privilege and bound together by something more suffocating than love.

Karim Aïnouz leans fully into grotesque absurdity of the patriarchal family structure, crafting a world where opulence replaces intimacy and designer clothes become both armour and performance. The siblings orbit each other with a compulsive closeness and their dependencies heightens by the mythical presence of their blind father.

The ensemble cast thrives in this atmosphere of quiet decay. The performances are stylised yet deeply felt, balancing satire with something almost tragic. There is a biting humor, that underscores the absurdity of inheritance, identity and the performative nature of familial roles. Rosebush Pruning trims away the illusion of unity to reveal something far messier underneath. It is a film about control, legacy, and the quiet violence of staying too close for too long.

Watch it in German theatres from April 23rd.