The Roses (2025) – Review

Quick Thoughts:

1. I could watch Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch insult each other all day. There’s something comforting about intelligent people being mean to each other.

2. Best whale saving scene of 2025.

3. Director Jay Roach (Meet the Parents, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery) and screenwriter Tony McNamara (The Favourite, Poor Things) are not on the same wavelength, which makes the overall experience feel disjointed. 

4. It’s understandable why it doesn’t go full “caustic,” but the addition of silly characters (who seem like they should be in another movie) causes tonal whiplash. 

5. As always, Allison Janney steals the show. 

When I saw the trailer for The Jay Roach-directed The Roses, I was struck by the bright colors and rom-com stylings that differentiated the 2025 reimagining from Danny DeVito’s 1989 adaptation of William Adler’s 1981 novel The War of the Roses. DeVito’s film is loaded with dark humor and punctuated by Kathleen Turner’s acerbic wit and Michael Douglas’s brutal line delivery. The 1989 film gets so bleak that it becomes funny, and the final moments sell the idea that an actual war happened in the white collar household. DeVito’s film is drenched in shadows, and the beautiful house the couple lives in becomes a living nightmare. The same cannot be said for The Roses, which feels like a rom-com that met The War of the Roses and became a disjointed divorce comedy. This isn’t a bad thing because nobody wanted a shot-for-shot remake; however Jay Roach’s bright direction and Tony McNamara’s biting script don’t seamlessly blend. 

The Roses justify its existence by casting Olivia Coleman and Benedict Cumberbatch as the unhappy married couple. Their chemistry is through the English-moss-covered roof, and the best decision made by Roach and McNamara was to put a lot of focus on their relationship. In the book and Devito’s film, marriage problems arise when Barbara Rose (Kathleen Turner) realizes she couldn’t care less if her husband Oliver (Michael Douglas) dies after he has a heart attack. In The Roses, Ivy (Colman) and Theo (Cumberbatch) allow 13+ years of small aggressions to slowly add up. There aren’t any sudden revelations, instead, their collapsing marriage is like watching unchecked English ivy slowly engulfing a tree.

This time, the location is swapped from Washington, D.C. to the northern coast of California, which is where Ivy (Olivia Colman) and Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch) have their battles. Ivy and Theo meet during a meet-cute in a London restaurant, and soon move to California, where Theo can pursue his dream of becoming a big-time architect. While in California, the couple has two children, and Theo makes enough money to buy a shuttered restaurant located on a piece of beautiful California coastline. The money was originally supposed to go towards their dream home, but he wants Ivy to have a place where she can work part-time and cook up delicious seafood and desserts. At first, Ivy doesn’t take her business seriously as she names her restaurant “We’ve Got Crabs” and doesn’t expect any business. The restaurant proves to be financially important when a building designed by Theo collapses during a gusty storm. Between the destruction of the building and Theo’s viral reaction, he loses his job and becomes unemployable. During the storm, Ivy’s restaurant is bombarded by stranded travelers, and her food becomes famous when a revered food critic writes a glowing review. This forces Ivy to become the family breadwinner, while Theo becomes a stay-at-home dad who turns his kids into a pair of exercise machines. From there, their marriage starts falling apart, and it leads to drugged soup, terrible dinners, and drunk arguments.  

The problem with the film isn’t the whipsmart dialogue written by Tony McNamara (The Favourite, The Great, Poor Things) – a man who loves putting rich people through the wringer. There are some great jokes about two-hour circular arguments and watching two intelligent people blow up their lives because they are unable to apologize is interesting. However, The Roses never fully unleashes its thorns and is content with a few thorn pricks. An interesting aspect of The Roses is that it looks like a glossy romantic comedy. This creates tonal discombobulation as the supposedly horrible things they do to each other don’t have any weight and feel like cheeky shenanigans. For instance, there’s a moment when Theo secretly doses the “We Got Crabs” food with magic mushrooms. This leads to a restaurant full of drugged people who don’t sue the restaurant for gross misconduct. It’s a romantic comedy, so it exists in a reality with rom-com rules; however, the caustic and broad comedic elements don’t blend well. Toss in Andy Sandberg, Kate McKinnon, Belinda Bromilow, Sunita Man, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Demetriou and Zoë Chao, and you have a roster of likable actors who feel like they are acting in different movies.

The Jay Roach-directed films Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and Meet the Parents went all-in on spy nonsense and peak cringe, and they both were big hits that spawned franchises. The Roses isn’t laser-forced, and instead works as a pleasant distraction involving people being terrible to each other. From a box office perspective, it’s understandable that it doesn’t lean into pitch-black humor, but by trying to make it more audience-friendly waters down the proceedings. It’s worth a watch because Colman and Cumberbatch are great, just don’t expect anything other than a mildly pleasing experience.