‘Pet Shop Days’ Review: Two Men With Daddy Issues Attract One Another, and Trouble, in Promising Nepo Debut

A scrappy urban tale of misspent young adulthood, Olmo Schnabels Pet Shop Days evokes the blown-out, stolen-shot 16mm character studies of 1990s independent cinema, as well as the bohemian oeuvre of painter and filmmaker Julian Schnabel, his father. This isnt attributable merely to the fact that the younger Schnabel includes a scene in which his characters watch Julians 1996 Basquiat, whose themes and aloof tone not to mention the events of Jean-Michel Basquiats actual life would seem an obvious inspiration for his first feature. But in a contemporary absence of true New York stories told by filmmakers with seemingly more moxie than money, newcomer Schnabel distinguishes himself with a debut that feels tactile, real and suitably off-putting as he attempts to capture the sensibilities (if not always common sense) of twentysomethings.

Dario Yazbek Bernal (of Netflixs House of Flowers) plays Alejandro, a spoiled, rebellious young adult who has bonded perhaps unhealthily with his mother Karla (Maribel Verd) under the oppressive thumb of his father Castro (Jordi Moll), a well-established Mexican crime lord. After his halfhearted suicide attempt leads to vehicular manslaughter, Alejandro flees to New York where he meets Jack (Jack Irv), a aimless 20-year-old living with his affluent parents Francis (Willem Dafoe) and Diana (Emmanuelle Seigner) while working in a pet shop. Navigating the city using tenuous contacts from his fathers empire while under a frequent haze of drug use, Alejandro deftly seduces Jack before pulling the lost young man into his criminal mischief.

In spite of Alejandros unpredictability, Jack quickly develops deeper feelings for his companion, exacerbated by the discovery that Diana is receiving medical treatment for a life-threatening illness, and Francis has begun an affair with his sisters tutor Andy (Camilla Rowe). In the meantime, Castro dispatches his henchman Walker (Louis Cancelmi) to retrieve Alejandro from New York and clean up any of his sons residual messes. As the risks and red flags continue to accumulate around their shared future, the duo agree on a desperate plan to burglarize a wealthy housewife.

Because Pet Shop Days opens on the events that precipitate Alejandros flight to New York, its easy to make the mistake early on that he is the films protagonist. But Jack Irv, who not only plays his onscreen namesake but cowrote the film with Schnabel and Galen Core, subverts expectations by slowly drawing Jack into the foreground for a character study that ends up being even sharper and more resonant than that of his volatile counterpart.

Spoiled by his wealthy parents, Jack functions in absence of obligation. Hes lost in a sea of too many options without a clear focal point, the byproduct of being told he can do anything he wants or puts his mind to, and receiving no discipline to try. The pet store fills Jacks time but doesnt stimulate or challenge him, so outside of a tenuous flirtation with Andy, whos just a few years older than him but much more poised, hes restless for a life to begin that he cant even imagine.

Conversely, Alejandro bullies Jack into complicity and a feverish version of love giving him unpredictable direction that proves welcome if only because its otherwise nonexistent in his life. The young fugitive hates his father almost as much as he does anything in his life that appears to impose rules, including upon his sexuality, which he defines only dismissively. Yet his behavior is all a petulant attempt get back at (and garner the attention of) Castro, as well as to navigate his guilt about the unintentional crime that he committed. The difference that emerges between the two is Jacks underdeveloped moral compass, which prompts him to push back if not quite successfully against Alejandros smash-and-grab criminal enterprises.

If their shared delinquency (in the face of mutual wealth and parental overindulgence) makes neither particularly likeable, Bernal and Irv leverage the characters circumstances to make us understand, even sympathize with their plight. Schnabel helps by framing Alejandros behavior with the ominous infrastructure and resources of his fathers business dealings, but Bernal utilizes the characters mercurial brattiness to showcase the push-pull influence of growing up under Castros tight-fisted control and financial indulgence. Irv on the other hand plays Jack sweeter and a bit dumber than his would-be lover. The young actor also communicates how youthful love forces individuals to ignore red flags quite possibly some of the same ones both Jack and Alejandros parents did when they first got involved.

In an era of social media and wall-to-wall therapy speak in parent-child relationships, Schnabel captures the energy of young adults who are afforded every opportunity to live successfully but have never been adequately prepared: Alejandro and Jacks lives are initially free of real consequences, and they come together because theyre both looking for something they cant identify. Meanwhile, cinematographer Hunter Zimny evokes a slightly less sleazy version of the look of Larry Clarks Kids, applying the same voraciousness to each space that Alejandro does to his acquaintances, romantic partners and criminal contacts for a sense of imminent danger. Though not quite the big apple of Abel Ferrara or Martin Scorsese, Schnabel captures a surprisingly gritty, street-level realism (even if the streets mostly exist on New Yorks Upper East Side) that has long felt absent from screens.

That said, Schnabel and his writing collaborators leave unresolved a handful of intriguing plot details some that dont need to be, but others that might have strengthened the films relationships and themes. Unlike the central relationship between Jack and Alejandro, theres much more thats good here than bad, and again the directors approach to the characters and the world they inhabit feels visceral in a way that few films are these days. Consequently, though Olmos debut tells the story of two young men wrestling with the oversized influence of their fathers, Pet Shop Days possesses a creativity, and a sensitivity, of a filmmaker who already seems capable of occupying the spotlight on his own.