Ambitious architect Theo Rose (Benedict Cumberbatch) is happily married to chef-turned-housewife Ivy (Olivia Colman), complete with two children and a fancy sea-facing California home. But when Theo’s career declines and Ivy becomes a successful restaurateur, the sugar-coated façade of their marriage starts to melt and crumble.
Forget the return of rom-coms when we have this delightful ‘anti-rom-com’. At a time when big studio rom-coms don’t seem to be as profitable for a theatrical release, Austin Powers director Jay Roach, along with Poor Things scribe Tony McNamara, are on a mission to revive the big studio ‘anti-rom-com’. A modern-day reimagining of Danny DeVito’s 1989 tragicomic hit The War of the Roses and Warren Adler’s novel of the same name, The Roses is thankfully not a cash grab novelty remake. Instead, lead actors Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch seem to be having so much fun hugging each other (and then running to each other’s throats) that The Roses very much feels like it’s an original story in its own right; a cautionary parable on the perils of marriage if not planned right.
Well-cast leads share effortless chemistry, even in moments when the chemistry is toxic, fatal, and self-destructive. The titular couple get their fair share of meet-cute moments and parental pride until the marital bliss fades out a decade later. McNamara’s witty screenplay doesn’t really deal in blacks and whites but rather the morally grey regions of a seemingly picture-perfect couple. It’s evident from the very start that our British lovebirds will eventually fall out of love, but when the roses start turning smelly, it is a gradual decline into toxic love rather than a full-blown descent into madness. You still see the glints of toxic love shimmering in Theo and Ivy’s eyes. Lines between hate and love are blurred to the point you can’t help but have a sadistic chuckle seeing their marriage crumble. While this might not be a groundbreaking project for ever-versatile film/TV/theatre artistes like Cumberbatch and Colman, both stars are in top form here, effortlessly displaying straight-faced humour with deadpan dialogue delivery.
As the very 2000s-like posters would show you, The Roses also boasts an ensemble cast with several pairings gracing the Rose family’s not-so-sweet home. While these supporting players feel like they’re just cameoing to keep the plot afloat, Saturday Night Live alumni Kate McKinnon and Andy Samberg share the scene-stealing spotlight as another incompatible couple that denyingly cling to the fact that they’re very much in love. Contrasting these gun-toting Americans with our sailor-mouthed Brit protagonists makes for some fun banter, even though the Americans vs Brits humor can feel a bit dated and formulaic for this era.
Marital slapstick with a side of gender commentary. The Roses is a strong remake that reinvents source material with silly hijinks and some surprisingly profound commentary on gender norms and Instagram’s latest obsession, ‘performative males’. As Colman’s stoned restaurateur gleefully witnesses her culinary empire rise from a seafood bistro cheekily christened ‘We’ve Got Crabs’, Cumberbatch does a great job in tapping into Theo’s masculine insecurities. The washed-out architect isn’t a beer-guzzling, high-decibel barker per se (like let’s say Adam Driver in Marriage Story), and rather some might see him as an aspiration house husband at times. And yet when his professional envy does come out, it’s a masterclass in muted anger and chilling condescension. This could have been a fairly standard dark comedy where both spouses are cut from the same cloth, cartoonishly lashing out at each other in shouting matches. The Roses too has its heated matrimonial debates, but Colman’s over-the-top rage with Cumberbatch’s calculated slyness adds more nuance to its generic premise. This is, of course, not to say that Roach’s anti-rom-com doesn’t find its lovers chasing each other with knives and forks. Unlike its 1989 predecessor, The Roses might not rewrite the rules of tragicomic, but it does provide some escapist fun with some complementary food for thought. Safe to say, don’t watch it if your marriage is on the rocks right now.
A marriage story that plays out as a delightfully dark and occasionally silly ‘anti-rom-com’.
Watch The Roses — in theaters now