Sharp comedy ‘Pretty Problems’ aims at a wealth of satirical targets

The rich “are different from you or me,” F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote in a short story, to which Ernest Hemingway famously retorted in a story of his own, “Yes, they have more money.”

But the .01 percent truly seems like an alien species in “Pretty Problems,” Kestrin Pantera’s acidly funny culture clash about a wild weekend in California wine country. The film is now available to rent on VOD.

Fitzgerald is actually a good touchstone for “Pretty Problems,” since the storyline feels a little like “The Great Gatsby” in its look at beautiful rich people who treat the rest of the world like playthings. But a struggling middle-class couple finds it’s kind of fun to be the playthings and luxuriate in the pampered, privileged world — at least for a while.

Jack and Lindsay (Michael Tennant and Britt Rentschler, who also co-wrote the screenplay) are a married Los Angeles couple just barely making ends meet. Jack is a disbarred lawyer who sells solar panels door to door, while Lindsay is a wannabe fashion designer who works in an upscale boutique, gritting her teeth as she’s bossed around by a manager a decade younger than her.

Then a wealthy young woman, Cat (JJ Nolan) glides into the store, looking like she wears a permanent Instagram filter in real life. Cat and Lindsay hit it off, and on a whim Cat decides to buy one of every item in the store, and demands that the manager hand-wrap every single item. Lindsay is transfixed by Cat, and how her money provides the cushion for a carefree, consequence-free lifestyle.

Cat invites Lindsay and the more skeptical Jack for a birthday weekend at their palatial home near Sonoma. “This is a murder house,” Jack warns as he sees the imposing mansion. But Cat’s Richie Rich husband Matt (Graham Outerbridge) and another couple (Charlotte Ubben, who also wrote the screenplay, and Alex Klein) seem disarmingly friendly, and shower them with gifts and attention. Who could refuse?

What follows is a weekend of debauchery and excess, as the couples lounge around the pool, have servants at their beck and call, and do lots and lots of day drinking (and day vaping). Lindsay and Jack struggle to keep up, buying $300 bottles of wine they can’t afford. The taste of the good life only underscores how shabby their regular lives are.

This is the sort of movie where you expect things to turn to “Purge”-like horror, or wrenching drama, as we learn the dark underbelly to this rich couple’s sunny existence. But the sharp satiric truth of “Pretty Problems” is that it looks really fun to be wealthy, as long as you don’t care too much about other people. As Cat says, giving the movie its title, “Being rich doesn’t solve your problems. It just makes them prettier.”

The screenplay is very funny, sending up the self-involvement of the ultra-wealthy without tipping too far into outright parody — there’s much talk about buying things that are “sustainable” or “biodynamic,” as if their conspicuous consumption is making the world a better place. Perhaps because half the cast wrote the screenplay, the banter is quick and natural. It’s a pleasure to hang out with these people for 90 minutes, even if most of them are terrible people who are destroying the planet.