‘Pet Shop Days’: Venice Review

Dir: Olmo Schnabel. US/Italy/UK/Mexico. 2023. 110mins

Pet Shop Days channels the reckless energy of its main characters, two young men from different worlds who meet in New York, their impulsive lives intertwining in a maelstrom of sex, drugs, crime and other bad decisions. Director and co-writer Olmo Schnabel’s feature debut gets high on its own edgy hedonism, offering a walk on the wild side with individuals who constantly flirt with self-destruction. But that rebellious spirit — that sense that this volatile drama could spin off in any number of possible directions — is ultimately undermined by auteur mannerisms that come across as show-off-y rather than adventurous.

Prickly characters and messy narratives richer in atmosphere than tight plotting

The son of Oscar-nominated director and painter Julian Schnabel, Olmo unveils Pet Shop Days at Venice, boosted by a notable supporting cast that includes Emmanuelle Seigner, Maribel Verdu, Peter Sarsgaard and Willem Dafoe. (In addition, Martin Scorsese and Michel Franco are among the picture’s executive producers.) This low-budget, handheld odyssey, shot in gloriously scuzzy 16mm by cinematographer Hunter Zimny, should appeal to hip arthouse crowds who relish prickly characters and messy narratives richer in atmosphere than tight plotting.

Dario Yazbek Bernal plays Alejandro, who flees his well-to-do family in Mexico and escapes to the Bronx, where he encounters Jack (co-writer Jack Irv) –  a local with his own issues with his parents, the bickering Francis (Dafoe) and Diana (Seigner). Instantly drawn in by Alejandro’s charisma and confidence, and not yet realising how emotionally volatile he is, sheltered Jack is shown a twisted wonderland of orgies, neon-lit strip clubs, and random coke buys, eventually hooking up with the bisexual man. As part of their plan to create a fresh start for themselves, the lovers begin breaking into rich people’s homes – but the impetuousness of their untamed romance may prove to be their undoing.

Olmo Schnabel draws inspiration from gritty New York films of the 1970s, painting an impressionistic landscape in which the city is a den of dark pleasures in which Alejandro leads Jack into temptation. Provocatively, the filmmaker refuses to make his lovers likeable in any conventional sense, forcing the viewer to confront Alejandro’s unremitting arrogance and verbal abusiveness — not to mention Jack’s self-pity and timidity. Their toxic rapport is marked by anger, codependency and bursts of violence, and Pet Shop Days can be hypnotic in its non-judgemental view of these damaged, spoiled individuals ill-equipped for a relationship or adulthood.

Yazbek Bernal exudes some of the same carnal appeal as his half-brother Gael Garcia Bernal, playing Alejandro as a sexual carnivore devouring any pretty thing in his path. Given to loud outbursts when he is not browbeating Jack, Alejandro is a manipulative narcissist – monstrous but occasionally compelling enough to explain why Jack continues to suffer his abuse. Irv portrays Jack as a fragile, needy soul who would rather work at a floundering pet store than accept the help of his wealthy but dysfunctional parents. One senses that Jack has been searching for something — perhaps it is simply self-acceptance about his sexuality — and in Alejandro’s tidal wave of passion he feels happily engulfed.

Unfortunately, Pet Shop Days’ exploration of its characters’ misanthropic attitudes eventually reeks of arty indulgence. There is a fine line between presenting amoral behaviour and wallowing in it, and Schnabel often fails to make the necessary distinction, allowing Alejandro and Jack’s misdeeds to become repetitive. The starry supporting players also reflect this problem, with Sarsgaard heavily affected in a brief role as a strip-club owner, and Dafoe and Seigner overdoing their parts as an embittered couple. (By comparison, Verdu entrances as Alejandro’s mother, who has a perhaps-too-close relationship with him.) 

In the picture’s later reels, Schnabel introduces a thriller element once Alejandro’s father sends a trusted enforcer (portrayed with unnerving impassivity by Louis Cancelmi) to hunt his son down. At Pet Shop Days’ best moments, the dreamy, smudgy images suggest a fractured fairy tale of true love seen through the prism of a decaying, morally sick metropolis. The spell can be potent, but it’s too easily broken, shattered by a filmmaker who celebrates his characters’ adamant rejection of society’s norms but rarely locates the poetry in their rebellion.