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In one of the film’s most audacious moments, Benedict Cumberbatch hurls a lemon across a sun-splashed Montecito kitchen, the projectile landing squarely on Olivia Colman’s unsuspecting face. The impact is both absurd and vicious, comedy and cruelty colliding in the space of a second. That gesture, equal parts slapstick gag and marital assassination attempt, encapsulates what The Roses—Jay Roach’s reimagining of Danny DeVito’s 1989 The War of the Roses—is after: a story of domestic warfare disguised as farce, told with a distinctly British sting, and shaded with an imperceptible darkness that lingers like citrus acid on the tongue.
The film opens with a whisper. “For you, dear, I’d do anything,” Theo (Cumberbatch) murmurs to Ivy (Colman), his architect’s precision wrapping sentiment in an elegant bow. But it isn’t long before affection curdles into acrimony. Theo’s once-promising career is crumbling, while Ivy’s culinary brilliance is propelling her into the limelight. From this imbalance grows an epic marital implosion—one part love story, one part demolition derby.
What distinguishes The Roses from its predecessor is its refusal to be merely a carnival of cruelty. Danny DeVito’s original leaned hard into the grotesque escalation of Oliver and Barbara Rose’s feud, reveling in smashed furniture and the operatic collapse of marital civility. Roach, working from Tony McNamara’s script, keeps the barbs sharp but injects a vein of melancholy. The humor here is not belly-laugh broad but rather needle-fine, threaded with British irony and McNamara’s gift for cruelly articulate repartee. Laughter comes in bursts, then falters into something closer to a wince.
Cumberbatch and Colman, both Oscar winners best known for their dramatic gravitas, make inspired pivots into this treacherous tonal territory. Cumberbatch plays Theo not as a tyrant but as a man quietly eroded by insecurity, his clipped diction unraveling into sputtering self-defense. Colman’s Ivy is no mere scorned wife; she is incandescent, channeling domestic frustration into ambition, her barbs all the sharper for being delivered with disarming warmth. Their chemistry crackles, not with romance but with a perilous intimacy: two people who know exactly where to drive the knife.
The supporting cast bolsters the duel without diluting it. Andy Samberg, as a hapless family friend, lends his elastic absurdity to therapy scenes that spiral into chaos. Kate McKinnon plays Ivy’s confidante with a sly, destabilizing energy, while Allison Janney’s turn as a lawyer has the weary bite of someone who has seen this battlefield too many times before. The ensemble functions as a kind of Greek chorus, amplifying the madness without overshadowing the central war.
Roach’s direction surprises. Known primarily for broad comedies (Meet the Parents, Austin Powers) and politically tinged dramas (Bombshell), here he finds an uneasy middle ground: the film is brightly lit, the Montecito vistas sun-drenched and intoxicating, yet menace lurks in the corners. The camera lingers a beat too long on empty wine glasses, on knives left a little too near the edge of a counter. These choices cultivate a sense that violence—emotional or physical—is never far off, even when the dialogue sparkles.
Still, this is not a film of relentless bleakness. McNamara’s screenplay thrives on rhythm, pitting Ivy and Theo in exchanges that feel like verbal tennis at breakneck pace. “You’ve always had a gift for architecture,” Ivy coos at one point, “shame no one wants to live in your buildings.” Theo’s retort—“Better than living in your shadow”—lands less as a punchline than as a wound. The comedy is cumulative, accruing sting with every line. Viewers seeking guffaws may leave puzzled, but those attuned to the razor’s edge between love and loathing will find the humor all the more corrosive.
It is impossible to ignore the ghost of DeVito’s original. Released in 1989, The War of the Roses was both a box office hit and a cultural flashpoint, reveling in its carnage while embodying a certain late-Reagan cynicism about wealth, marriage, and self-interest. Roach’s version, by contrast, reflects a 21st-century anxiety: the precariousness of gendered ambition within marriage. Theo resents Ivy’s success not simply because it eclipses him, but because it threatens the architecture (literal and figurative) of his masculine identity. Ivy, in turn, refuses to diminish herself to preserve that structure. Their war is both personal and structural, resonating with contemporary debates about career, gender, and the myth of “having it all.”
The film is also acutely aware of performance itself—of how couples curate their image. In early scenes, Theo and Ivy host dinner parties with performative ease, smiling wide while quietly seething. The eventual collapse of their marriage is staged not just in private but in public, with each determined to weaponize perception against the other. In that sense, The Roses is as much about reputation as love, about the way ambition corrodes intimacy in an image-driven age.
If there is a flaw in Roach’s approach, it is pacing. At just over two hours, the middle section occasionally sags under the weight of its verbal sparring. A tighter edit might have sharpened the escalation. Yet even here, the indulgence serves a purpose: we feel the exhaustion of being trapped in this marriage, the way arguments can sprawl endlessly, neither side willing to yield.
Visually, the film thrives on contrasts. Montecito’s lush landscapes and pristine interiors become ironic backdrops for scenes of chaos. A food fight staged in a minimalist kitchen becomes a grotesque ballet, yellow yolks against marble countertops, Ivy’s immaculate chef whites splattered with ruin. Roach and cinematographer Matthew Libatique capture these sequences with both comedic timing and painterly eye, transforming destruction into art.
As for whether The Roses will find its audience, Searchlight’s late-summer release strategy is a gamble. The slot traditionally favors horror or escapist fare, not cerebral black comedies. Yet perhaps that odd timing reflects the studio’s confidence that word of mouth—and the star wattage of Colman and Cumberbatch—will propel the film beyond niche appeal. It may not be an Oscar play, but it is poised to become a cultural conversation piece, a litmus test for how much venom audiences can tolerate with their laughter.
In the end, The Roses is less about divorce than about intimacy’s shadow side: how the people we know best can wound us most efficiently, and how love’s language can so quickly curdle into attack. It is a comedy, yes, but one that leaves a bruise.
As I left the screening, that lemon toss replayed in my mind—ridiculous, petty, and violent all at once. A fruit as weapon, a marriage as battleground. In Roach’s hands, the scene is not just funny. It is unforgettable.
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