by Tim Gordon
Life seems easy for picture-perfect couple Theo and Ivy Rose: successful careers, a loving marriage, and great kids. But beneath the polished exterior lies a tinderbox of fierce competition, ego, and resentment. When Theo’s once-stellar career collapses and Ivy’s ambitions soar, the marriage devolves into a battlefield where love and hate wrestle for dominance.
The Roses, directed by Jay Roach and written by Tony McNamara, reimagines Warren Adler’s 1981 novel for a new era. It’s a satirical black comedy that doubles as a contemporary remake of Danny DeVito’s 1989 classic The War of the Roses. This time, Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman step into the roles once made famous by Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, with Andy Samberg and Kate McKinnon playing their friends caught in the crossfire.
What sets this version apart is the way it reconfigures the couple’s roles. In DeVito’s original, Barbara (Turner) and Oliver (Douglas) build their dream home together, only for it to become the stage where their mutual hatred explodes. Barbara yearns for independence, Oliver clings to control, and their devotion rots into annihilation.
By contrast, in Roach’s The Roses, Theo (Cumberbatch) begins as the accomplished architect, while Ivy (Colman) stumbles into a restaurant venture that unexpectedly becomes a runaway success. When Theo suffers a humiliating career collapse, Ivy rises as the breadwinner, flipping the marriage dynamic on its head. To restore his pride, Theo insists on designing the family’s dream house, bankrolled by Ivy’s business success. What was once a shared vision turns into a monument to his hubris and a drain on her patience.
This shift adds a contemporary edge: instead of watching a woman reclaim her identity from an overbearing husband, we witness a marriage destabilized by shifting gender roles, ambition, and the resentment that follows when one partner’s success outpaces the other’s.
In both films, the house serves as the ultimate symbol of marital collapse. In The War of the Roses, it was the shrine Barbara decorated and nurtured, only to fight Oliver for control as their union disintegrated. Here, it is Theo’s grand vision, constructed on Ivy’s dime. Each beam and brick becomes another wedge between them, a reminder of how love and ambition intertwine until they corrode.
Roach uses this dynamic not just for tension but for satire. Where DeVito leaned into pitch-black comedy, portraying marriage as an arena of inevitable destruction, Roach and McNamara allow for irony and absurdity to mingle with the venom. The humor doesn’t erase the cruelty but reframes it: marriage, in this telling, is fragile and ego-driven, its battles as ridiculous as they are brutal.
Cumberbatch and Colman are superb. He imbues Theo with a mix of arrogance, desperation, and wounded pride, while Colman makes Ivy’s arc one of quiet frustration erupting into fury. Their chemistry sells both the love that once bound them and the animosity that tears them apart.
The supporting cast, Andy Samberg as Theo’s divorce lawyer and Kate McKinnon as Ivy’s confidante, helps puncture the bleakness with sharp comic beats. Allison Janney, as Ivy’s formidable attorney, brings steel to the satire.
Roach’s direction doesn’t shy away from the nastiness but balances it with wit, finding humor in the absurdity of marital collapse. Where DeVito’s film was a cautionary tale that ended with utter devastation, Roach’s version dares to feel lighter, even a touch hopeful, without diluting the venom that makes Adler’s story timeless.
The Roses doesn’t erase the darkness of The War of the Roses but reframes it for today’s audiences. It suggests that modern marriages are no less susceptible to collapse, though the triggers may be different: shifting power, professional insecurities, and ambition in a world where roles are less rigid but no less fraught.
Both versions trace the same descent: love to resentment, passion to destruction. But where DeVito’s film leaves audiences shaken by the futility of hate, Roach leaves them smirking, recognizing that pride and ambition can turn even the most idyllic union into combat.
The Roses opens in theaters on August 29, 2025
Grade: B
