Orlando Bloom’s Threesome Scene in ‘Bucking Fastard’ With Real-Life Sisters Rooney and Kate Mara Slammed as ‘Appalling’ and ‘Disgusting’

Werner Herzog has never been an easy director to summarize in a single sentence, and his latest project is proving no exception. ‘Bucking Fastard‘ premiered at the Venice Film Festival on September 3 before making its way to the San Sebastián Film Festival, bringing with it one of the stranger casting hooks of the fall festival circuit: real-life sisters Rooney Mara and Kate Mara playing codependent twins who share nearly everything, including a man.

The film follows twin sisters Jean and Joan Holbrooke, characters loosely inspired by real-life British identical twins Freda and Greta Chaplin, who speak in eerie unison and fall for the same married man, played by Orlando Bloom’s character Gareth Mulroney.

Herzog leans into that premise with the kind of unblinking, observational style he’s known for, following the sisters through courtrooms and social services as their bond with each other and with Bloom’s character spirals into something the film’s own reviewers have struggled to categorize.

That unconventional dynamic reaches its most talked-about moment in a threesome scene between all three leads, and it’s now the center of a wider public reaction. Page Six reported that the scene has been ripped by viewers as “appalling” and “disgusting,” turning what was meant to be one of the film’s more intimate character beats into its most divisive talking point.

Bloom has been candid discussing the scene since the premiere, describing it as something that came together with more emotional weight than people might expect. “There’s such simplicity to the characters and their carnal desires, but also an innocence to the sisters,” he said, adding that his own character “is sensitive too” and “quite quickly out of his depth” once things escalate. “It was a very sincere sort of moment that was created,” he explained.

Herzog backed up that approach, describing his hands-off directing style during the scene itself. “There are moments when a director has to step back,” he said, recalling telling Bloom, “You are in bed, and you have two women in your arms. How you deal with it, I cannot give instructions.” The director has since praised the finished result as having “charm and depth.”

Critics at Venice were considerably less kind to the film as a whole, even while largely praising the Mara sisters’ performances. One review from The Playlist gave the film a D+, calling it “the cinematic equivalent of doing donuts in a parking lot” despite what it called an “uncanny double act” from the sisters. Another from World of Reel went further, labeling the film “very much a failure that you wouldn’t wish your worst enemy to see.”

Rooney Mara, Kate Mara, Orlando Bloom, and Domhnall Gleeson talk to Deadline about how they got their roles in ‘Bucking Fastard’ and working with Werner Herzog #TIFF #BuckingFastard pic.twitter.com/XB7WwLFBUB

— Rooney Mara Fans (@femrooney) September 15, 2026

That gap between the film’s ambitions and its reception seems to be exactly what’s fueling the current backlash. A movie built around shock value and taboo-testing character work was always going to invite strong reactions, but the specific intensity aimed at the threesome sequence suggests audiences weren’t prepared for how far Herzog was willing to push the concept.

Whether the controversy ends up helping or hurting ‘Bucking Fastard’ at the box office remains to be seen, though festival buzz alone has kept the film in conversation well past its premiere weekend. For Bloom, at least, the experience seems to have been worth defending regardless of how it’s being received.

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