Review ‘Pet Shop Days’: two young men fall in love and use drugs in Olmo Schnabel’s Grating directorial debut

There’s a great tradition of messy but glorious movies about couples who bring out the crazy in each other and end up doing all kinds of bad things. Unfortunately, Pet shop daysa directorial debut for writer-producer Olmo Schnabel (son of Julian Schnabel), it’s just messy and never glorious.

Even with the built-in benefit of Willem Dafoe and Emmanuelle Seigner taking on major roles (both not at their best), cameos from Peter Sarsgaard and Maribel Verdu, and a massive list of executive producers who should have known better (including Michel Franco and Martin Scorsese ), this slow-paced crime drama is plagued by terrible dialogue and weak lead performances from Jack Irv (also co-writer, along with Schnabel and Galen Core) and Dario Yazbek Bernal as two loathsome, lovelorn brats.

The opening scene introduces us to Alejandro (Dario Yazbek Bernal, half-brother of Gael Garcia Bernal), a young man in his twenties, who snuggles in bed with Karla (Maribel Verdu). They both hate going down to a party. The event is a birthday party for Karla’s husband (and Alejandro’s father) Castro (Jordi Molla), a major player in a Mexican cartel, who clearly has a troubled relationship with his sullen, flighty son. Parent and child become further estranged when, after an argument with Castro, Alejandro tries to run away in a family car but accidentally runs over Karla.

The next time Alejandro is seen, he has arrived in New York City. There he meets Jack (Irv), a handsome but not very bright man, also in his twenties, from a wealthier family than his menial job at a pet store in the Bronx would suggest. Jack’s father Francis (Willem Dafoe), who apparently does something in the financial world, and mother Diana (Emmanuelle Seigner) are constantly bickering, much to the chagrin of Jack and his sister Lucy (Grace Brennan). Jack and Alejandro are clearly attracted to each other and party together every chance they get, even going so far as to hire female prostitutes with whom they have sex before copulating with each other.

The film settles into a slow middle section where not much happens as the two boys party, buy drugs, do drugs, meet more sex workers and have more sex – rinse and repeat. One escort takes revenge on the boys by leaving a huge mess of feces all over the toilet, a brown action painting shown here in detail for no discernible artistic reason other than shock value. Meanwhile, one of Castro’s followers, Walker (Louis Cancelmi), is hunting Alejandro, perhaps to kill him or to take him back to Mexico to reconcile with his father, or perhaps just to buy him food and say goodbye . Who knows?

Shot on grainy, underexposed 16mm stock by DP Hunter Zimny, the film is clearly trying to resemble a lost underground film from the late 1970s or 1980s – perhaps something from one of Andy Warhol’s acolytes or early Gregg Araki, but without the infectious energy or dramatic flair that made these films fun. This is not funny.