David Jenkins

It’s certainly a work that requires a low tolerance for excitement, as the story doesn’t end so much as it enters into a predictable slow fade.

Rosebush Pruning is proudly a weird, bad time at the movies, but it’s also a film that selects its targets and then hits them with dead aim.

As superficially entertaining as it all is, it feels like Loquès is on a mission to keep things fun, lively and romantic, to the point where Nino wouldn’t be a massively different film if its hero had been given a clean bill of health.

To be honest, the first half of the film is a little scattershot, and it’s hard to know what the filmmakers are actually driving at in terms of a thesis (or, indeed, ample justification for a 5th run-out). Yet when Jessie’s big scene arrives, everything appears to naturally coalesce and it’s plain sailing from there on in.

The film works because the earworm at is core is exactly the type of slushy ballad that you would imagine would capture the public imagination, yet it all hinges on Danny’s character being completely unscrupulous despite the fact that he’s introduced as a sound and reasonable guy.

It’s a slick and fitfully amusing affair that never quite penetrates deeper than the surface in its broad critique of the uncomfortable intersections between culture and state.

The film takes great pains to give both sides of the debate an equal platform, but it’s clear what side is the one of rational common sense, empathy and creativity.

As with the titular Ravel piece, this is a work that is mellifluous, melodious and mysterious in equal measure. A Sphinx-like Beer, once again, seems to connect with her director on a level which transcends the purely professional, and through her economic yet forceful use of body language and expression, she makes certain that the film adheres perfectly to Petzold’s immaculate calculations.

It’s hard to imagine a more superficial and safe film, although there is the suggestion that all the juicy stuff has been compartmentalised and stored up for a possible sequel.

With this film, we get little hints of the Cronin of yore, but there’s also so much dire exposition and necessary genre static in the background that his imprint is less discernible (and enjoyable) than you’d hope it would be.