Olmo Schnabel‘s feature directorial debut “Pet Shop Days” has an official first trailer, and it’s as scandalous as initial festival runs promised in 2024.
Indie distributor Utopia acquired the film last March, after a successful premiere at the Venice Film Festival and the Texas-based SXSW. Led by Jack Irv and Dario Yazbek Bernal, “Pet Shop Days” costars Willem Dafoe, Peter Sarsgaard and Emmanuelle Seigner. The project boasts a powerful bench of executive producers in Martin Scorsese, Jeremy O. Harris and Michel Franco (“New Order”).
Bernal (Netflix’s “House of Flowers”) stars as Alejandro, the son of a Mexican crime lord on the run from his past in New York City. There he meets Jack (Irv), a 20-something living with upper-class parents Francis (Dafoe) and Diana (Seigner) while working in the titular pet shop. In a haze of drugs and sex, Alejandro seduces Jack and drags him into the city’s criminal underbelly.
Irv and Bernal prove quite a troublemaking pair in the trailer below, which shows us glimpses of its starry cast and an escalating darkness. In Variety‘s festival review of the film, director Schnabel was praised as distinguishing 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.”
“Pet Shop Days” opens March 15 at New York’s Roxy Cinema and March 28 at Los Angeles’ Now Instant Image Hall. Further showtimes will be announced.
