Marriage and death are inescapably linked. The only way matrimony technically succeeds is through the “till death do us part” loophole built into the vows. InThe Roses, Jay Roach’s remake of Warren Adler’sThe War of the Roses, death often feels like amore appealing prospect than enduring the hellish union of Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Ivy (Olivia Colman).
The couple meet in asteamy, charming encounter in the kitchen of Ivy’s restaurant, where she is an ambitious young chef and he acelebrated architect. Over time, their power dynamic flips: Ivy becomes the family’s star earner while Theo’s career collapses after avery public humiliation, leaving him to channel his energy into raising their children and constructing an impossibly chic dream home. On paper, it’s areasonable compromise; on screen, Roach’s black comedy suggests there is no compromise without resentment, no sacrifice without scorn, and no holy union without the risk of descending intohell.
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The 1989 original thrived on atone of escalating absurdity, Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner pushing marital breakdown to operatic extremes, she the neglected housewife who hates her husband, he an ambitious breadwinner who can’t win her back. Roach and screenwriter Tony McNamara update that formula with acontemporary edge: viral humiliation, influencer chefs, and alight dusting of late stage capitalism. If the film doesn’t radically deepen the conversation around the gender politics or financial intricacies of marriage, it does find new textures in the way ambition corrodes intimacy.
But regardless of whether its insights have any lasting profundity, Cumberbatch and Colman give the film apulse, the intensity of their bond is never in doubt, whether in love or in loathing. Their chemistry peaks during therapy sessions where, even as they savagely catalogue each other’s faults, they can’t help but delight in each other’s wit. It’s extraordinary that this is the first time the pair have appeared on screen together and the film is at its best whenever they share ascene, proving greater together than the sum of their formidable parts.
That alchemy doesn’t extend to the supporting cast. Aseasoned ensemble including Andy Samberg, Allison Janney, and Ncuti Gatwa is criminally underused, relegated to bland dialogue and reaction shots. Visually, the film has more to chew on. The couple’s dream house (complete with Julia Child’s original stove) is exquisite enough to justify fighting over, but also asly metaphor: its precarious cantilevered design and tilting windows feel like warnings of arelationship on the brink. Elsewhere, though, the script stumbles, their spectacularly bland children, Theo’s unlikely decade-long internet infamy, and Ivy’s seafood empire, “We’ve Got Crabs,” ajoke that starts bad and yet grows even less funny with each repetition.
Still, the precision of Colman and Cumberbatch’s comic timing, and Roach’s steady stream of gags, sustain acurrent of giggles. Like Theo and Ivy, the film can’t quite recapture the romance of the past, but it leaves you yearning for an era when mid-budget, starry comedies weren’t such an endangered species. And if the Roses’ marriage is doomed to end in death, the film makes asolid case that the ambitious adult comedy deserves resurrection.