The Hollywood Insider – ‘The Roses’
Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman headline Jay Roach’s unexpectedly explosive satire, mixing razor-sharp British wit with uproarious American chaos.
It takes a certain kind of nerve to reimagine Warren Adler’s “The War of ‘The Roses’”, a novel already seared into pop culture memory by Danny DeVito’s gleefully vicious 1989 adaptation. Jay Roach’s new film, ‘The Roses’, doesn’t attempt to outdo that iconic black comedy in sheer cruelty. Instead, it takes a more refined, modern approach, trading some of the razor-wire nastiness for elegance, bite, and the electric thrill of watching two of Britain’s most formidable actors tear into each other with precision timing.
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The result is a movie that feels less like a bloodbath and more like a feast: tart, satisfying, occasionally overstuffed, but consistently entertaining. At its core are Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman, playing Theo and Ivy Rose, a couple whose love story sizzles from the start and whose unraveling is just as riveting.
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Love at First Bite
The opening act wastes no time establishing chemistry so palpable you can practically taste it. Theo, an accomplished architect with a perfectionist streak, ducks into a restaurant kitchen after a professional humiliation. There, he meets Ivy, a fiercely talented chef whose eyes lock onto him with hunger both culinary and carnal. Their banter is instant, sharp, and funny, and Roach allows the scene to breathe just long enough for us to believe in this improbable spark. When the two end up tangled in passion among the pans and fish fillets, it’s absurd, yes, but also genuinely sexy and hilarious.
This is where ‘The Roses’ earns its keep. Too many romantic comedies ask us to buy into chemistry that never materializes. Here, Colman and Cumberbatch make the impossible look easy. She plays Ivy with a predatory sparkle, while he reacts with a mix of awe and mischief. From that moment on, you believe these two would follow each other across oceans and into madness.
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Shifting Dynamics
The film smartly structures itself around the tides of professional and personal success. Early on, Theo’s career dominates while Ivy sacrifices, staying home to raise their children and channel her creativity into elaborate desserts, one of which becomes a showstopping edible replica of a maritime museum he designed. But fate intervenes cruelly: Theo’s architectural triumph literally collapses, humiliating him and killing his career. At the same time, Ivy’s modest seafood shack, cheekily named We’ve Got Crabs, rockets to fame after a stranded critic sings its praises.
Cut to three years later, and the couple’s dynamic has inverted. Theo becomes a hyper-disciplined stay-at-home dad, channeling his wounded pride into molding their kids into athletic prodigies. Ivy, meanwhile, is basking in culinary stardom, juggling magazine spreads and restaurant openings. The imbalance festers. Theo resents her success but can’t quite admit it. Ivy feels alienated from her children, who now see their father as the reliable center of their world. What was once playful rivalry curdles into suspicion and contempt.
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When Love Becomes War
Of course, the war at the heart of ‘The Roses’ comes down to property, a spectacular coastal home that Ivy bankrolls but Theo designs. It’s a dream house that becomes the ultimate battleground, stuffed with symbolic flourishes (Irish moss roofs, ancient monastery tables) that both elevate the décor and inflate the budget beyond reason. The more ornate the home grows, the more their marriage crumbles, until walls and chandeliers alike are weapons in the carnage.
Roach, working from Tony McNamara’s whip-smart script, knows when to escalate and when to hold back. The insults are dazzlingly constructed, dripping with the same erudite profanity McNamara honed in ‘The Favourite’ and ‘Poor Things’. Ivy’s fury is volcanic, Theo’s defensiveness pathetic yet oddly sympathetic, and together they build toward blowups that are as funny as they are painful.
Unlike the DeVito film, which leaned into full-throttle savagery, this version tempers its cruelty with flashes of intimacy. Even at their ugliest, you see why Theo and Ivy once adored each other. That thread of compatibility, mutual wit, shared ambition, makes their collapse all the more tragic, and strangely, a little romantic.
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The Supporting Cast
The central duel is so magnetic that the supporting players often feel like garnish. Andy Samberg, as Theo’s lawyer and friend, underplays nicely, offering a weary foil to ‘The Roses’’ escalating antics. Kate McKinnon, as his eccentric wife, provides sketch-comedy-level raunch that doesn’t always mesh tonally but occasionally lands laugh-out-loud absurdity.
Allison Janney, though, steals her single scene as Ivy’s ferocious divorce attorney. With withering one-liners and a service dog that doubles as a power move, she reminds us why she’s one of Hollywood’s great scene-thieves. It’s a cameo, but a delicious one.
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A Modern Marriage Story
What makes ‘The Roses’ resonate in 2025 isn’t its slapstick destruction but its commentary on ambition and gender roles in marriage. Roach and McNamara reframe Adler’s story through contemporary eyes: what happens when both partners want not just balance, but supremacy? When equality becomes a zero-sum game, who sacrifices, and who resents?
Ivy’s arc, in particular, feels modern and layered. She isn’t just the “wronged wife” archetype; she’s an ambitious professional who seizes an opportunity, then refuses to apologize for thriving. Theo, meanwhile, embodies the fragility of male pride, undone not simply by failure but by his inability to redefine himself outside of work.
These questions give the comedy weight. You laugh at ‘The Roses’, yes, but you also squirm with recognition. Few couples could match their extremes, but the undercurrents, competition, envy, and unmet expectations feel universal.
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Style and Substance
Visually, ‘The Roses’ is less flamboyant than Roach’s ‘Austin Powers’ days, but it has its own pleasures. Cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister captures the Northern California coast (filmed in South Devon) with sweeping beauty, lending the movie a breeziness that contrasts its darker subject. Production designer Mark Ricker turns both Ivy’s restaurants and the dream home into spaces of aspirational envy, the kind of real-estate porn that softens the sharp edges of marital collapse.
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Final Thoughts
Is ‘The Roses’ as brutal as its predecessor? No. But that’s not its goal. Roach has crafted something slyer and arguably more watchable for a wide audience: a dark comedy that bites without drawing too much blood, that critiques modern marriage without slipping into despair.
The heart of the film, Colman and Cumberbatch, beats strongly. Watching them spar, seduce, and sabotage each other is worth the ticket price alone. She’s fiery and uncompromising, he’s brittle and wounded, and together they create a dynamic that is as exhilarating in collapse as it is in love.
In the end, ‘The Roses’ may not replace DeVito’s classic, but it doesn’t need to. It offers a fresh bouquet: thorny, fragrant, and intoxicating in its own right.
Credits:
Director: Jay Roach
Screenwriter: Tony McNamara, based on the novel The War of the Roses, by Warren Adler
Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Colman, Andy Samberg, Allison Janney, Belinda Bromilow, Ncuti Gatwa, Sunita Mani, Zoë Chao, Jamie Demetriou, Kate McKinnon, Hala Finley, Wells Rappaport, Delaney Quinn, Ollie Robinson
By Elizabeth Gelber
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Elizabeth Gelber is an aspiring film and television producer and writer with a love for all things media, from music to fashion to entertainment. With a background in Television, Radio, and Film, as well as Fashion Communications, she is passionate about telling female-led stories that empower and resonate. Her work blends wit with empathy, aiming to humanize entertainment through an authentic lens. She believes the most powerful narratives are often rooted in everyday life, and she is drawn to creating media that reflects the world as it truly is, diverse, imperfect, and meaningful.
Elizabeth Gelber is an aspiring film and television producer and writer with a love for all things media, from music to fashion to entertainment. With a background in Television, Radio, and Film, as well as Fashion Communications, she is passionate about telling female-led stories that empower and resonate. Her work blends wit with empathy, aiming to humanize entertainment through an authentic lens. She believes the most powerful narratives are often rooted in everyday life, and she is drawn to creating media that reflects the world as it truly is, diverse, imperfect, and meaningful.
