Family ties — which are closer than most — are tested when eldest brother Jack (Jamie Bell) tries to bring his new girlfriend Martha (Elle Fanning) into the fold.
Efthimis Filippou has been responsible for some of Yorgos Lanthimos’ darkest material, co-writing most of the Oscar-winner’s bleak satirical oeuvre (Dogtooth, The Lobster, and Kinds Of Kindness to name but a few.) With this Catalonia-set family affair he continues his provocative streak, penning the screenplay for a gaudy, hollow study of a wealthy father and children’s taboo inner workings inspired by Marco Bellocchio’s Italian ’65 classic Fists In The Pocket.
Director Karim Aïnouz shepherds a heavyweight cast through the film’s thorny heart, which finds the relocated family patched back together after the violent death of their mother (Pamela Anderson), killed by wolves. Now, they face further upheaval as Jack (Jamie Bell), the family pillar, attempts to unstick himself from his socially aloof father (Tracy Letts) and rabid grown-up siblings, while introducing his girlfriend Martha (Elle Fanning).
Of the horny brood, Callum Turner is a standout…
Of the horny brood, Callum Turner is a standout as the periphery-hovering, Ripley-type middle brother Ed, as is Riley Keough as their entertainingly petulant sister Anna. Upon learning that Martha is a gifted guitarist, Anna brings out her own guitar to strum in an act of churlish defiance. The film is spotted with these wry moments, which feel earned amid the wretched dynamic of the ensemble, mostly shown from the perspectives of Jack and Ed — the former determined to start life anew at a violent price, the latter sinking further into domestic dysfunction to a shocking degree.
Yet the stilted material is too committed to shock and opulence at a time when eat-the-rich fables are already at cat-swinging capacity. The ensemble’s collective vapidness is taken too literally, with the script never bothering to dip below the surface and interrogate the messy, sad malaise just out of sight. Instead, we’re encouraged to float, satisfied, in the film’s sea of catwalk-ready costumes, alluring architecture, overworked metaphors and strangely sterile brutality. Even with the body-count rising, however, fluids and flora are not enough to make this rosebush rise above the rest.
This dark comedy’s aesthetic glossiness seeps over the story’s jagged edges, leaving a smooth, glassy and impenetrable movie with nothing new to say.
