The Roses 2025 Movie Review: A Black Comedy That Entertains, But Doesn’t Take The Hit
The Roses 2025 Movie Review: The Roses were born with a load of expectations: an iconic novel, a cult film precedent, and two top performers, such as Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch. The screenplay was written by Tony McNamara, a master of sharp sarcasm, while behind the camera is Jay Roach, who is skilled at balancing comedy and melancholy. The result, however, is a film that alternates between brilliant moments and drops in tone, oscillating between black comedy and glossy rom-com without ever finding a distinct identity. The War of The Roses is the remake of the 1989 film directed by Danny DeVito, but it is also an adaptation of Warren Adler’s 1981 novel, “The War of The Roses”. More than forty years since the book, more than thirty since the film, and for once, Hollywood has done the wrong thing (investing in the past instead of innovating) in the right way, taking its time and working to modernize the product. He didn’t make a mistake with the protagonists. They’re perverse, funny, fragile, and empathetic: Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch have a nonchalant approach to performing and working together. This is Theo and Ivy. Once upon a time, they loved each other, but not anymore, or maybe it’s the opposite. It’s unclear. The film attempts to construct its discourse on this opacity through a combination of black humour, drama, comedy, and emotion.
Remaking a film that has entered the imagination – with a title that has become a figure of speech – is always a gamble, even if at the origin there is a novel to be adapted again to reposition it in the present. As is known, The War of The Roses, written by Warren Adler way back in 1981, has become a cult, directed by Danny DeVito in 1989 and starring the wild Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner: an acid, ruthless satire that unravels the dark side (euphemism) of the Reagan decade, with its hedonistic, free-market hangover taking shape in the destruction of the bourgeois institution of marriage. If the lawyer DeVito is there telling the story to a client, in The Roses, the narrative ploy is different. It starts with Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch, unbridled as ever) and Ivy (Olivia Colman in another essay on supreme jiggery-pokery) in couples therapy, who throw up the worst infamies on themselves with the cold control due to their British identity, an origin about which they are willing to joke by dismantling clichés and playing with stereotypes. An evidently functional skeptical start (they don’t think they need help like that) that frames a flashback, which ends late in the film. It’s a false start: a way to read these new ones. The Roses it is the British key, so much so that the title recovers the original pun (the Wars of The Roses).
The Roses 2025 Movie Review: The Story Plot
Chemistry was everything, chemistry is everything. The 1989 film was entirely dependent on the chemistry between Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner – two wonderful yet unlikable characters, with Douglas being the standout – and also The Roses bet everything on Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman. They must weave the nervous electricity of their art to pay a fitting tribute to the original film and the book, without debasing themselves in a sloppy, pastiche copy, but rather, doing everything possible to bring the story to the present day; they make it their own. The film by Jay Roach attempts to keep up with the times by re-examining the balance of power between the protagonists, Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Ivy (Olivia Colman). They are quite established professionals. He is an architect, a Swiss watch of precision and competitiveness; she is a chef, more relaxed, bordering on indiscipline. They seem to be on the verge of taking flight. They meet by chance, and they are so distant in character that they complement each other perfectly. It is the most classic of love at first sight.
The Roses focuses on the discourse that separates a conventional and rather sappy view of married life— the gruesome hypocrisy of the perfect family—from the merciless truth, passing story and characters under the acidic lens of a bittersweet, dark humor. The film amuses, has a nice beat, and reveals a little of the nastiness of the original to show us the progressive unraveling of Theo and Ivy’s marriage in the light of quiet desperation, tremendous frustration, and the war of the sexes. With the marriage, they have two children, a boy and a girl. Ivy leaves her job, while Theo’s career goes swimmingly. Then everything turns upside down. Theo makes a mistake with one of his designs and is erased from the world of architecture. Ivy opens a small place, which, after a breathless start, transforms her into a star at the restaurant.
Now it is Theo who stays at home with the boys –he makes them two very efficient toy soldiers, thus balancing Ivy’s more unruly philosophy of life – while she, overwhelmed by work, distances herself from family life. That’s how The Roses modernizes without betraying its dual source: it inverts roles but sets aside the toxic dynamics. Theo rots with frustration and jealousy over his wife’s success, while Ivy fails to balance home and work and is envious of the time the man spends with his children. The story accompanies the decline of feeling with a gallery of half-truths, aggressive passivity, and barely repressed resentment. The wickedness, the real one, only comes at the end, and even then, it is a little dampened. It’s a shame.
The Roses 2025 Movie Review and Analysis
It’s not just Theo and Ivy; alongside balancing their omnipresence and offering the viewer an escape from the pettiness of the great marital war, there is a large supporting cast of characters. Jay Roach caught them among the best that English-language TV and cinema offer in these complicated times. In some cases, it is a simple cameo, very quick, perhaps too quick, but effective: this is the case of the fearsome divorce lawyer played with sadistic satisfaction by Allison Janney. Or there is no room for satisfactory growth, as for the good but underutilized Sunita Mani (GLOW) and Ncuti Gatwa (Doctor Who and, above all, Sex Education). Then there are Andy Samberg and Kate McKinnon. They are Barry and Amy, friends of Theo and Ivy, and a real disaster: unhappy, sexually repressed, and emotionally deranged, they try to move forward as an open couple, but in vain. They are also the only ones who work, because they accept themselves for who they are, prioritize love, and set aside selfishness. More or less, they are terrible too, after all. But that’s exactly the point.
Jay Roach believes, with good reason, in the talent and verve of the two big shots of American comedy. Andy Samberg and Kate McKinnon don’t just function as reliable shoulders or tragicomic escapes from center-stage drama. Barry and Amy serve as the emotional barometer, measuring what works and what doesn’t happen in Theo and Ivy’s relationship. It’s a risk, though, The Roses. If each couple lacks even the slightest balance, the drama loses momentum and realism. It should be remembered at this point that the objective of the film is not to draw up a precise account of the ups and downs of family life; it is pure Hollywood spectacle, and should be taken as such. They might get divorced, but they don’t. On the other hand, what would happen to cinema if the characters remembered that reasonableness and sanity also exist? Theo and Ivy’s problem, mirrored by the imperfect but more solid love of Barry and Amy, is to cling to an illusory idea of perfection, without reckoning with reality. They cannot be happy at the same time because they do not agree to let go of their selfishness and get lost in the other.
They seek, and the film faithfully accompanies them, that perfect moment of love that cannot be scratched by anything. They seek absolute stillness; it is dangerous. Jay Roach he recounts his tragicomic sentimental heroes by unreservedly plundering the nervous flair of Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman. He steers his electricity in the direction of repressed hostility and unusual meanness; she puts her fragile, self-deprecating grace at the service of greater harshness. They work well together, and the film supports them with an airy, fast-paced script – the no-holds-barred struggle between the two is essentially a war of words – all based on the expressiveness and undisputed charisma of both. The Roses love their actors very much, and he does a good job. He also loves Theo and Ivy very much, and that’s not necessarily a good thing. What’s the big deal with The Roses? The film by Jay Roach is a valuable staging, a quick and very, very funny chronicle of married life. It’s the pas de deux of an extraordinary couple – Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman, they deserve, from the Italian public, the act of love of the original language version, if possible, but even a film that can’t decide which side it’s on.
He manages to incorporate many of the themes that structure marriage politics – gender war, work, power dynamics, mental health, and furious competition – into his exuberant narrative. Still, he doesn’t push the pedal of black comedy as hard as he could and indeed should. There is always a shadow of ecumenism and empathetic understanding to temper the refreshing wickedness of the story; however much harm they do, and could do more with it, the viewer waits only for that – the film never ceases to remind us of humanity and fragility, as portrayed by Theo and Ivy. The Roses have too much kindness in store for their protagonists; in sickness and in health, in wealth and in poverty, until death do them part and perhaps even afterwards. He mocks the illusory perfection of the perfect family by exposing its ridiculousness, revealing how things really are. Not incendiary enough in the first case, too sympathetic in the other, The Roses works at a slightly reduced deviation compared to its potential.
The main problem with I Roses is the tone. The bright photography, dreamy locations, and interior design evoke a Nancy Meyers-style romantic comedy, in stark contrast to the corrosive nature of the story. This smooth veneer dampens the tension, preventing the film from truly sinking the knife into the heart of the toxic wedding it wants to tell. The result is a conflict that is less visceral and less desperate than that of the original, which left no escape for either the characters or the viewer. Despite excellent individual performances, Colman and Cumberbatch struggle to convince as a couple. Missing that spark and erotic charge that exploded between Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in DeVito’s film. Here, love and hate seem more constructed than experienced, and this makes the escalation leading to the final meltdown less credible. It’s a shame, because the script gives them more than a moment to shine, yet unresolved tension holds up the whole story.
Behind the play, The Roses tries to tell something more: the weight of power dynamics within a couple, the fragility of male identity in the face of female success, and how love can turn into hate when complicity gives way to grudge. Interesting ideas, which however, the film only addresses on the surface, preferring the brilliant register to dramatic crudeness. The result is an elegant yet somewhat inconclusive satire, which entertains but rarely strikes deeply. The third act, which is supposed to explode into nastiness and pain, instead, he chooses a more contained approach. There is the destruction of the house, and there is the inevitable fall, but it lacks the Greek tragedy tension that made the 1989 film unforgettable. Here, hatred almost seems like a pose, and emotional violence remains tamed. It is precisely this lack of ferocity that leaves a sense of unfinished business when the credits roll. For over an hour, The Roses remains more a chronicle of married life than a dark comedy about divorce. The first sparks explode in therapy as a couple, in a hilarious yet ruthless scene, where a consultant quickly admits that there is no hope for the two.
But it is only in the last twenty minutes that the story has really gotten closer to the tone of the 1989 original: broken dishes, threats, physical struggles, and a crescendo that culminates in an ending without winners or losers. And in any case, wickedness is never achieved in the original adaptation. This narrative choice can leave viewers dissatisfied: the accumulated tension promised more escalation, long and brutal, but the film seems to hold back, almost fearing crossing the threshold of the grotesque. Next to the two protagonists, we find supporting actors who are luxuriously well-equipped. Andy Samberg and Kate McKinnon interpret Barry and Amy, friends and helpless observers of the marital defeat. Despite their natural comedy, the film does not give they plenty of room to shine. It is more incisive, Alison Janney, as Eleanor, Ivy’s divorce lawyer: a concentration of aggression and irony that gives some of the most memorable scenes.
Visually I Roses it’s flawless. The photography of Florian Hoffmeister and the scenography of Mark Ricker offer interiors and landscapes of a lush and sparkling California coastline, with ultra-modern designer houses that perfectly reflect the status and obsessions of the protagonists. The result is an aesthetic reminiscent of Nancy Meyers’ films, characterized by dreamy kitchens and well-maintained environments. However, this elegant patina creates contrast, sometimes alienating the spectator from the dark material of history: the world is too beautiful to believe in the tragic disintegration that truly takes place there. And maybe in this very one, the 2025 version loses comparison to the cult directed by De Vito. The Roses is not a perfect film. It suffers from an unbalanced structure, which slows down too much in the first act and doesn’t dare enough in the last. However, thanks to the acting power of Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch, it manages to convey the feeling that a marriage, once broken, can become a claustrophobic nightmare. It’s a remake that, although not achieving the unforgettable ferocity of the 1989 version, finds its own space in telling the contradictions of the present.
The Roses 2025 Movie Review: The Last Words
The Roses is an elegant but unresolved remake, which shines in the dialogues and performances of the protagonists but loses bite due to an overly glossy tone and a chemistry that is not always credible. A black comedy that entertains, but doesn’t take the hit. The Roses, in fact, are based precisely on the meeting between the Agro humor and dialectical tension of McNamara and the ability of Roach to inflame conflicts by making the best use of the codes and rhythms of comedy. Those who know the story can imagine the ending, but the film mounts tension with sagacity: in the frame of a comedy that becomes increasingly black, and the game of massacre is exalted by delegating the action to the word. When it comes to melee – in a space that is a battlefield, simulacrum of a utopia, project of a tomb – after a series of sabotages as violent as the beatings three Douglas and Turner, ferocity cannot do without clumsiness, resentment is an ice cube in yet another whiskey and the old world of passions lives (no spoilers) defeats the new one of efficient technology but “without needs or desires”.
Cast: Olivia Colman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Andy Samberg, Kate McKinnon, Allison Janney, Ncuti Gatwa, Zoë Chao, Jamie Demetriou
Directed: Jay Roach
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3/5 (three stars) 🌟🌟🌟
