The Roses
Immaculate houses, bitter laughs, and two great stars in a mid-budget gem we don’t get enough of
What is it: A tinderbox of competition and resentments underneath the façade of a picture-perfect couple is ignited when the husband's professional dreams come crashing down.
Watch if you like: War of the Roses, The Favourite, The Great, Marriage Story, Couples Retreat
News and Notes:
Released today
Schmear’s Verdict: The Roses is a sharp, adult-minded anti-rom-com that thrives on Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch’s chemistry, Tony McNamara’s wit, and the simple joy of laughing along with a crowd.
The Roses is exactly the kind of mid-budget, adult-minded studio comedy people say they miss—and, irony of ironies, it’s arriving the same week as Caught Stealing, another one likely to underperform while scratching that very itch.
Seeing it in a theater was amazing—the audience was cracking up at the hilarity between Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch. The secret to successful comedy isn’t a gimmick; it’s great actors performing it, and here you’ve got two of the best, making a meal out of Tony McNamara’s (The Great, The Favourite) bouncy, delicious dialogue.
I haven’t seen War of the Roses, and a lot of the negative reviews of this new film seem tied to comparing this with the original. I went in fresh and had a wonderful time. The houses are impossibly immaculate. Jay Roach doesn’t add much flash directorially, but he shoots the comedy well, especially a big dinner table scene midway that’s uproarious. The movie takes real life and just turns the volume up. It’s not Marriage Story, but what it loses in realism, it makes up for in absurdity.
The supporting cast is full of winning performers like Andy Samberg and Kate McKinnon, who, goddamnit, still makes me laugh with her same schtick. At just over 100 minutes, the whole thing moves. It doesn’t ask much of you, but in return it gives you appealing performers chewing on great lines.
McNamara is perceptive about the tiny slights and missed moments that eat away at a marriage. The ending is bitter and darkly funny, but there’s a hopeful thread here too. So much of it comes down to communication—sometimes your partner’s literally on the other side of the door waiting for you to knock, and if you don’t, that’s another crack in the foundation. The Roses understands death by a thousand paper cuts.
Colman and Cumberbatch are two of the most underrated comedic actors we have. Their timing is sharp, their chemistry is great, and the whole cast feels light and alive in a way we don’t see enough of anymore aside from on TV.
Cumberbatch is a sad sack holding himself to impossible standards; Colman’s talented and kind but sometimes uncaring. McNamara balances the flaws and strengths so neither of them feels fraudulent. For a 100-minute comedy, our leads feel rounded.
It’s an anti-rom-com that’s still a good time. Watch it in a theater, laugh along with people, then go home and debate with your partner if you’re closer to Colman or Cumberbatch. I didn’t need The Roses to be darker; it did exactly what it set out to do.
