The Roses

Rating 5/10

The Roses opens in a therapist’s office where Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Ivy (Olivia Colman) are in counseling.  Janice (Belinda Bromilow) assigns them to write ten positive things about their partner.  They rattle off a series of passive-aggressive barbs against each other.  “He has arms,” she offers.  He suggests, “I would rather live with her than a wolf.” Janice thinks they are hopeless as a couple, and the pair casually dismiss her on their way out.  When Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman are quarreling, the film is a delight.  Unfortunately, those moments are rare in this surprisngly tender portrait.

The story then rewinds to London, where Theo, an architect, meets Ivy, an aspiring chef.  They fall in love, move to America, and build a family together.  Ten years later, they’re married with two kids, Hattie (Delaney Quinn / Hala Finley) and Roy (Ollie Robinson / Wells Rappaport), but cracks start to appear.  Ivy struggles to realize her culinary ambitions while Theo’s architectural career flourishes.  Then a massive storm changes everything: his prize project, a naval history museum, is destroyed, while her small seafood restaurant, cheekily named “We’ve Got Crabs,” becomes an overnight success when people seeking shelter from the storm discover it.  A glowing review from a food critic launches her career, while Theo loses his job and finds himself at home with the children.  Their duties reverse, and that’s when the marriage begins to unravel.

The best parts are the verbal duels between Cumberbatch and Colman, whose sharp banter and stinging one-liners truly crackle. What falters are the American characters that suck the energy out of every scene. The Roses have two couple friends, one played by Andy Samberg and Kate McKinnon, the other by Jamie Demetriou and Zoë Chao.  McKinnon is back playing yet nother ‘quirky’ individual identical to everything in her repertoire.  However, this time her recycled shtick makes no sense.  Out of nowhere she starts making passes at Theo, in a cringeworthy display that’s just sad.  But it’s not just her—the whole quartet is awful.  Neither of these American couples make sense as married pairs, and certainly not as friends of this sophisticated British couple. The idea that Theo and Ivy would waste their time with such clueless idiots is absurd.  The momentum grinds to a halt whenever they appear.

If there’s a takeaway from this new adaptation of Warren Adler’s 1981 novel The War of the Roses, it’s that the Brits know how to trade insults far better than the Americans.  Nowhere is the contrast more evident than in a dinner scene where the “polite digs” between Theo and Ivy escalate in front of their guests. A pivotal turning point showing their marital tensions spilling into the open gets undercut. The Americans egg it on and hurl vulgar, witless slurs at their own partners, flattening the sharp wit that made Theo and Ivy’s exchange so compelling.

A welcome exception to my “Americans drag this movie down” axiom is Allison Janney as Ivy’s lawyer. Despite her prominence in the marketing, she regrettably only appears in one scene. The narrative could have benefited from more of her.

Overall, The Roses looks and feels more like a tired sitcom than a biting dark comedy. The movie poster boasts: From the director of Meet the Parents (Jay Roach) and the writer of Poor Things (Tony McNamara). The mix is just as tonally inconsistent as that pairing sounds. The picture has its charms. It’s certainly sweeter than the original. The key difference from the 1989 version starring Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas is that this isn’t an acrid tale of divorce. But rather a glossy sentimental soap about wealthy, white, middle-aged marrieds. The conflict stems from shifting dynamics in their relationship, the sacrifices they make, and whether love can survive those changes. To their credit, Theo and Ivy seem genuinely in love with each other and make many attempts to hold their marriage together. When their clashes erupt into caustic verbal sparring, the film comes alive. But those moments are fleeting. What lingers is a polished domestic drama, pleasant enough, but never as searing or as funny as it promises to be.

08-28-25