‘Razor sharp’: our verdict on romantic comedy-drama The Roses
Australian screenwriter Tony McNamara’s dazzling script is thespian heaven for stars Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch.
The romantic comedy-drama The Roses is a quick-witted, constantly humorous, sometimes serious account of a marriage on the rocks and much of the credit for this goes to Australian screenwriter Tony McNamara.
The dazzling script is thespian heaven for the stars, Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch, who put a wicked British spin on this remake of Danny DeVito’s 1989 movie The War of the Roses, starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner and based on the 1981 novel by Warren Adler.
This version is directed by American film-maker Jay Roach, best known for the Austin Powers movies.
We first meet architect Theo Rose (Cumberbatch) and his chef wife Ivy (Colman) in a marriage counselling session in California, their home for more than a decade.
The therapist asks them to list 10 things they love about each other. They each reel off increasingly not-so-good things and Ivy caps her list with “No.10 Theo is a c..t.” They look at each other and burst out laughing. The therapist does not.
This goes to a running joke about the differences between British and American humour and perspectives. When Theo uses an escaped convict and Shakespeare’s sonnets as an excuse to leave a party, his hosts believe him. What the Brits see as repartee the Americans see as hostility, and as Theo and Ivy’s marriage wobbles, the line between the two becomes wafer thin.
There’s a terrific extended scene when Ivy and Theo rip into each other over dinner. Their American friends at the table assume it’s the banter of a loving couple and experiment with doing the same to each other, with unloving consequences.
The sexual jokes – or not jokes – are particularly savage. The dialogue is razor sharp, especially as Ivy and Theo let loose their inner thoughts and reveal their “dizzying hatred” for each other.
She’s a self-obsessed narcissist; he’s a needy manchild. If you want to see an even fiercer example of this inner critic being released, check out the 2021-23 television series Physical, starring Australia’s amazing Rose Byrne.
The tipping point for Ivy and Theo is when one of his buildings, a maritime museum, more or less sinks and she, to keep them afloat, opens a seafood restaurant. He has to look after their two young children, and their different parenting styles becomes a thorny issue, as does the success of the restaurant.
Yet their problems are older and deeper than that. This remake focuses more on the marriage than the divorce and as such explores some important questions. When the divorce proceedings do start, however, it’s no-holds-barred, with Allison Janney superb as Ivy’s lawyer.
McNamara has twice been nominated for screenwriting Oscars, for the Yorgos Lanthimos films The Favourite (2018) and Poor Things (2023).
He will be a contender for this film, which sparkles with words from the time Ivy and Theo first meet to them arguing over who “will sacrifice themselves on the altar of marriage” to the final scenes, which put an interesting twist on the original.
“Never leave me,’’ Ivy tells her husband at one point. “But when you do, kill me on the way out.”
The Roses (MA15+)
105 minutes
In cinemas
★★★½
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