INTRODUCTION
This is a quick review of the newly released film The Roses. Please note that this is just one of the many movies I will have watched each year, and my initial grade for this film may change over time, for better or worse. To stay up to date on my thoughts about other movies and any potential changes in my opinion on this one, follow me on Letterboxd.
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PLOT
Via Letterboxd: Life seems easy for picture-perfect couple Ivy and Theo - successful careers, a loving marriage, and great kids. But beneath the façade of their supposed ideal life, a storm is brewing; as Theo’s career nosedives while Ivy’s own ambitions take off, a tinderbox of fierce competition and hidden resentment ignites.
REVIEW
Warren Adler’s incredibly dark, biting, and comedic novel The War of the Roses, in which a divorcing couple tormenting each other to evil extremes, was adapted into a film in 1989, just eight years after its publication. That movie, directed by Danny DeVito and anchored by Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, became a box office hit and, in the decades since, has earned status as a late-eighties contemporary comedic classic in some circles.
Now, three and a half decades later, we’re getting a brand-new adaptation simply titled The Roses. This time, Jay Roach, best known for directing the Austin Powers trilogy and the first two Meet the Parents, takes the helm, while the screenplay comes from Tony McNamara, whose magic writing gave us the scripts for The Favourite, Cruella, and Poor Things. As for the cast? Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman headline as the feuding couple this time, with an ensemble that includes Andy Samberg, Kate McKinnon, and Allison Janney, among others.
On paper, that’s an intriguing combination. I even had this film on my early Best Picture projections board much earlier in the year. Naturally, I was curious as the marketing campaign began, would it come close to the critical and commercial success of the 1989 film?
I should also be blunt though, I also did come into The Roses with some trepidation. I’ve never been fond of the Douglas–Turner version, and I’ve never had the desire to pick up Adler’s novel. Stories about couples tearing each other apart just don’t appeal to me, and the mean-spiritedness of the material left me cold. From what I’ve heard, the ’89 film even toned down some of the novel’s darker elements.
Still, I’m a film critic, so I gave this new take a fair shot. I wanted to see if it would soften the edges of the story and make the lead characters a little more sympathetic. The answer I got was… complicated.
The Roses stays faithful to the spine of the 1981 novel and 1989 film, but it takes notable liberties to stand apart. The biggest changes include renaming the protagonists, expanding the focus on the marriage’s final years (despite a shorter runtime than the ’89 film), and reversing who wants the divorce and what they’re seeking from it. Supporting characters get more weight too, though they’re often written as broad stereotypes, especially in Kate McKinnon’s performance - which continues a pattern of her leaning too heavily on her exaggerated comedic tropes.
This time around, the leads are more sympathetic than their late-eighties counterparts. McNamara’s script smooths out their rough edges, making their unraveling less vicious and more tragicomic. That’s both a blessing and a curse though. On the one hand, I welcomed a version less steeped in cruelty. On the other, it sometimes feels like the film pulls its punches, especially for audiences who appreciate the nastier, more bitter tone of the earlier works. Even I, someone who wanted the roughness toned down, felt something vital was missing.
Cumberbatch and Colman have terrific chemistry, I’d happily see them paired again, and McNamara deserves credit for trying to reshape a famously nasty story into something gentler. But if you’re expecting a bitter, scathing marital war with fewer comedic hijinks, you’ll likely find this film tamer and less effective than either the novel or the 1989 movie.
Overall, I’d say I preferred Roach’s The Roses slightly more than DeVito’s The War of the Roses. Even so, I still struggled to connect with a story about two people destroying each other, despite a finale that aims for darkly sweet rather than purely bitter. For me, it lands at no better or worse than a C+. The effort and talent are evident, but ultimately, divorce-as-comedy just isn’t my cup of tea. Maybe it’ll be yours, but I still left my screening sour at this particular tragic comedy.
GRADING
