The opening credits of The Roses, directed by Jay Roach from a screenplay by Tony McNamara, bill the movie as a love story. The initial loving relationship of Ivy (Olivia Colman) and Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch) Rose is shown in flashback . . . quite a contrast to what unfolds during the course of the film.
Now comfortably married for several years, Ivy and Theo are middle-aged parents of two children living a country life in scenic Mendocino, California. Theo is an architect, Ivy a homemaker with culinary skills. As Theo’s star and income rise, he buys Ivy a little-visited café for her to exercise her restaurant expertise.
But mother nature steps in and reverses their roles (no spoiler here as to how that happens, but it is worth seeing). Theo becomes a house husband and Ivy the successful chef/owner of a chain of seafood eateries. The lifestyle switch causes the expected frustrations: Theo bound down with domestic chores and raising the kids and Ivy married to a demanding business with little time for home, husband and offspring.
Ivy funds their cutting-edge house design to let Theo work his architectural skills on a costly project that fails to reduce their frustrations. The resulting friction is the basis of the film.
Increasing hostilities between husband and wife follow: food-fight dinner parties, drunken vacations, and many physical arguments. Divorce is on the horizon, and confirmed in Theo’s mind after he helps save a beached whale (does that make sense?).
The dialogue is clever, quick, and glib. Cumberbatch and Colman’s performances follow script, and are full of the variety of emotions that their characters experience from happy domesticity to hostility to marriage counseling to divorce proceedings.
Supporting cast members, led by Kate McKinnon and Andy Samberg, are little seen and underutilized. Allison Janney as Ivy’s divorce lawyer—in full scene-stealing fashion—is on screen for just five minutes.
As a remake of the 1989 film War of the Roses, it is meant to provoke the same laughter at the outrageous ongoings of the at-odds couple. Both leads and supporting cast are well-known and able. The actors are accomplished players. But the non-stop arguments have less of the fierceness of the original and more snarky repartee between the characters. Laughter was sporadic in the almost-sold-out theatre where I saw the film.
I left The Roses trying to determine what is wrong with the film—and something most definitely is.
Is it the cartoon behavior of the characters? Is it the improbable outcome of the over-the-top bitterness between two often tiresome and thinly developed individuals? Is it the impossibility of matching the sting and humor of the original film?
If you enjoy watching character actors deliver sharp, often witty, dialogue, see the film and come up with your own explanation: Why is The Roses just “almost”?
Editor’s Note: The Roses is playing at The SLO Film Center at the Palm Theatre.