Pet Shop Days

We begin the story in Mexico, with Alejandro (Darío Yazbek Bernal), a poor little rich boy who’s prone to anger and fits of rage. He throws a temper tantrum at his father’s birthday and then runs over and nearly kills his own mother (the always great Maribel Verdú of Pan’s Labyrinth and Y tu mamá también). He flees to the United States—New York City—to escape his life, but, as we always know, he can never escape himself.

The title of Pet Shop Days is two-fold: Alejando meets and hits it off with Jack (played by co-writer Jack Irv), who works at a pet shop, cleaning out fish tanks and other assorted duties. Alejandro also wins $1,500 by calling a radio station and correctly answering a trivia question about the 1980s pop duo responsible for the song “West End Girls”. “That’s easy!” He says. “The Pet Shop Boys!”

Alejandro and Jack get into trouble around the city, doing drugs, screwing (each other and the odd woman who falls into the mix, such as real-life porn star Abella Danger as a stripper), and finally, robbery that, inevitably, escalates into murder. Pet Shop Days is a classical story we’ve seen throughout the ages, where someone falls for a bad seed, and they get carried off into a life of crime as a result. Badlands, Bonnie and Clyde, and Natural Born Killers are about this kind of love that twists and perverts the unsuspecting youth into violence and mayhem.

There’s usually a certain charm and swagger to the criminal. An undeniable screen presence. A charismatic je ne sais quoi. Yes, they’re crazy, but there’s a hypnotic energy that draws people in. It’s a cult of personality. Alejandro has none of that. As a character, he’s probably a much more realistic portrayal of an unrepentant murderer, but he is not engaging or fun to watch. He’s irritating beyond all rational explanation. I can see Jack falling for a Mickey or a Mallory. But in Alejandro, he might as well be robbing swank, upscale apartments with Urkel.

Not every character needs to be likable. Stories such as these, character studies about terrible humans, are a tough act to pull off. How can you show their crimes and their disconnect from reality without having the characters be repellent to the audience? I think the secret ingredient is truth. Just show us the truth of the story. Why do they behave this way? What makes them tick? Pet Shop Days seems uninterested in those ideas and is more interested in spending tedious amounts of time with them in various clubs throughout the city. It's a shame because the film has excellent technical specs and a hell of a cast, including a scene-stealing bit role from Willem Dafoe as Jack’s father.

Beyond the wasted potential and the bizarre decision to saddle this plot with such an annoying, whiny main character, Pet Shop Days’ ultimate sin is that it’s boring. It’s more boring than an anti-drug lecture. Pet Shop Days, as a technical product, shows a strength in direction and storytelling technique from Olmo Schnabel, but his heart doesn’t feel like it’s in this story, an aloof tale of cliches and criminality that never feels inclined to dive any deeper than its surface. It’s all insubstantial flash and tedious bang.

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray
In a West End town, a dead-end world, Pet Shop Days comes to Blu-ray in a single-disc release housed in a standard case. The cover art is a brightly yellow slip with an image of Alejandro, Jack, and a woman they’ve picked up. Inside the case spans a screenshot from the film of the duo running down the street, away from a crime they’ve committed.

For all its faults, Pet Shop Days looks terrific, shot on 35mm film in an intentionally grainy aesthetic that suits the film well. Cinematographer Hunter Zimny shoots the story with a colorful eye, allowing neon lights to pop and dominate the scene, verging right on the edge of oversaturation. He allows the stylized lighting to exaggerate the tale into a kind of hyperreality. Given the graininess of the feature, I think 1080p/SDR suits its look over a 4K/HDR video presentation, as there are no true blacks to engulf individual shots due to intense lens noise. This allows exaggerated lighting to dominate the shot, which works well with the claustrophobic nature of the story. While the story itself didn’t quite work for me, I did admire the craft and skill that had gone into its production.

Pet Shop Days comes equipped with an impressive 5.1 DTS-HD MA sound mix. It’s not a particularly effects-laden film, so the majority of rear speaker activity is through ambient effects like city noise, or through Eli Keszler’s awesome score. We also see a lot of bass-heavy music and LFEs during the story’s detours through the clubs of the city. The movie can get noisy, but it never loses sight of the dialogue in the mix, always crystal clear and favored even in the busiest sequences.

Supplemental features are fairly limited, containing a pair of Q&As that provide insight into the film’s production, along with a trailer.

• Roxy Cinema Premier Q&A (HD 19:21)
• Q&A at the American Cinematheque at Los Feliz 3 (HD 26:32)
• Behind-the-Scenes Stills Gallery
• Original Trailer

It’s a shame how limited the options are when it comes to queer cinema. A classic “Bonnie and Clyde” story with a queer twist sounds like a no-brainer, particularly one shot on glorious 35mm film and executive-produced by none other than the legendary Martin Scorsese. Pet Shop Days is, alas, a boring, tedious and irritating film that never fully lives up to its potential. It does, however, look and sound great. Pet Shop Days on Blu-ray, from Utopia and OCN Distribution, is Worth a Look.