‘The Roses’ movie review: Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Colman are irresistible in this portrait of love and war  

The Roses, while talking of the disintegration of a marriage, is ultimately a love story. Directed by Austin Powers and Meet the Parents veteran, Jay Roach, The Roses is a remake of the beloved 1989 film, The War of the Roses, starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. The film is directed by Danny DeVito who also plays the lawyer telling the tale of the feuding couple. The War of the Roses is based on Warren Adler’s 1981 eponymous novel. 

The Roses is the best kind of remake, with updates and twists while remaining faithful to the spirit of the source material. Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch), an architect, meets Ivy (Olivia Colman) a chef, at a restaurant one evening in London when he walks out of a meeting with colleagues unsympathetic to his vision of hanging gardens.  

Ivy is prepping a meal when Theo asks if he could borrow her chopping knife. Sparks fly between the two and when Ivy says she is leaving for the US to follow her dream of starting a restaurant, Theo says he will come along. Fast forward 10 years and two children later, Theo is at the pinnacle of success while Ivy is doing fun stuff at home with the children, Hattie and Roy, like baking cookies in the shape of British monuments.  

Theo buys Ivy a restaurant, while he designs a maritime museum. He designs sails to give the feeling of battling the wind and waves. A freak storm destroys the museum while Ivy’s restaurant gets a fantastic review. As Theo’s career crashes and burns, Ivy’s soars resulting in straining the marriage.  

A still from ‘The Roses’
| Photo Credit:
Searchlight Pictures

Much as the Roses are at each other’s throats, flinging scabrous insults, there is always the sense of the deep love they have for each other, which does not seem obvious to anyone else. The marriage counsellor Janice (Belinda Bromilow) does not get it, nor do their friends, Barry (Andy Samberg), his wife, Amy (Kate McKinnon), Rory (Jamie Demetriou), and his wife, Sally (Zoë Chao), or Ivy’s staff including Jane (Sunita Mani), her sous chef, and Jeffrey (Ncuti Gatwa) the manager. 

The film, unlike The War of the Roses, which had the couple at each other’s throats practically from the word go, goes into full toxic terminator mode only towards the last 20 minutes. Till then, it is some rather hard-core sniping served on a bedrock of love with a side of disappointment, more than undiluted viciousness.  

The screenplay by the Oscar-nominated Tony McNamara practically sings with sarcasm, and Roach is a deft hand at risqué comedy (the naughty words, with the exception of the f-bombs, are incidentally bleeped out, which is weird for a film that already has an A certificate). The Roses belong to Cumberbatch and Coleman, as one can watch the 24-carat thesps serve and volley or smash aces till kingdom come and then return for seconds.  

The Roses is currently running in theatres