The Roses (2025)

Jay Roach’s reimagining of The War of the Roses offers a distinctly British spin on marital dysfunction, though one that occasionally stumbles beneath the weight of its own ambitions. Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman play Theo and Ivy, a couple whose picture-perfect façade crumbles as his architectural career implodes while her culinary empire flourishes. What emerges is both a contemporary meditation on gender role reversals and a cautionary tale about the corrosive nature of unaddressed resentment.

The film’s greatest strength lies in its central performances, with Colman and Cumberbatch bringing genuine chemistry to their initial courtship and equally convincing venom to their eventual dissolution. Their verbal sparring crackles with the wit we’ve come to expect from both actors, though one occasionally suspects they’re doing most of the heavy lifting. Tony McNamara’s screenplay loads most of the comedic ugliness into the final third, creating an uneven tonal progression that never quite settles into its groove.

The underlying exploration of modern masculinity proves fascinating, if underdeveloped. Theo’s transformation from successful architect to stay-at-home father exposes the fragility of male identity when stripped of traditional career validation—a theme that resonates with contemporary anxieties about shifting social expectations. Meanwhile, Ivy’s ascent to culinary stardom examines the double bind facing ambitious women: excel too much, and risk accusations of abandoning family responsibilities.

Roach’s direction prioritises information delivery over visual flair, often feeling more like a television pilot than cinema. The supporting cast, particularly Kate McKinnon and Andy Samberg, clash somewhat with the more grounded performances of the leads, their sketch-comedy sensibilities draining some much-needed cruelty from the proceedings.

Yet there’s something undeniably compelling about watching two supremely articulate people weaponise their intelligence against each other. The film succeeds best when examining how couples can become trapped in destructive patterns, each petty slight building towards something genuinely poisonous. The movie itself seems to realise that there’s something profoundly fixable about this marriage that couples counselling might actually address, which both humanises the characters and undermines the dramatic stakes.

The Roses functions as an effective, if imperfect, dark comedy that benefits enormously from its leads’ considerable talents. It may not achieve the satirical bite of its predecessor, but it offers enough sharp insights into modern relationships to justify its existence—even if you’ll leave the cinema grateful for your own, presumably less articulate, domestic disputes.