"The Roses" (2025) Film Review-Marital dysfunction offers plenty of hubris AND humor this time around

Remakes. Reboots. Reinventions. Redundancy. It’s the common practice in Hollywood of late, sometimes offering us victorious reimagining of what can be considered cinematic classics while also, more often, falling flat on their UN-imaginative faces in utter defeat and lackluster results. Admittedly, with this in mind, I went into the newest incarnation of “The War of the Roses” with typical trepidation and cautious optimism.

Fortunately, what I was given was a fantastically, though expectedly scathing, adventure in dark humor, satirical excellence, and sometimes straight up, hilarious FUN. I mean, it’s brutal, no doubt. There usually wouldn’t be, or frankly SHOULDN’T be, any genuine elation to be had when watching the deconstruction of two people’s relationship that begins so beautifully, yet ends so unceremoniously.

BUT, with director Jay Roach (the “Austin Powers” and “Meet The Parents” franchises’ helmer) behind the wheel, plus the combination of arguably two of Britain’s most talented stars yucking it up and causing all sorts of relational chaos on screen, the film adeptly, effectively, and YES, entertainingly, follows couple Theo and Ivy Rose (Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Coleman) and how their love-turns-into-hate-turns-into-love/hate when circumstances good and ill take them in decidedly different directions and mindsets about their union.

Add in the additional insanity of a not-so-normal group of eccentric friends who both try to understand and then simply find themselves along for the tumultuous ride, the couple’s kids whom Theo basically turns into superheroes and who have a strangely “ok, we saw this coming forever” attitude towards their parent’s sudden shifts in demeanor towards each other, and the entire notions of gender roles, jealousy of others’ success, losing one’s sense of identity, et al and it becomes one wacky, candid, wickedly biting portrait of the proverbial crazy train.

The film absolutely finds its legs ON the consummate acting skills of Cumberbatch and Coleman, who just brilliantly embody the couple and their building strife with such deft precision and unequivocal comedic timing throughout the film. Able to be so believably “lovey-dovey” and then (albeit, absurdly) overtly menacing towards each other is pure magic, and it all definitely keeps you engaged with the events as the unfold, no matter HOW ridiculous it becomes.

The film is also served well with its constantly morphing tone and moods the situations elicit, usually funny, but at certain times heartbreakingly serious, and how this then culminates in the finale is divine, even if anticipated given the film IS based on the original 1989 version. With just enough alteration and, if memory serves here, FAR more humor than its predecessor as well, more energy and jocularity arrives from a supporting cast that includes Kate McKinnon, Andy Samberg, Ncuti Gatwa, Sunita Mani, Zoë Chao, Allison Janney, and Jamie Demetriou.

With its unflinching, unapologetic, whimsically indulgent, ultimately tragic atmosphere firmly in hand, “The Roses” is a decidedly adult comedy that also isn’t afraid to get up close and personal with both its rawness and legitimate statements about the manner in which love and success can be a match made in Heaven or a complete express delivery from that other place, how it then affects self-image, and the hills we might have to climb to get out of the pit of despair we let it drag us down into. Not beyond reconciliation, of course….but, then again……