THE ROSES movie poster | ©2025 Searchlight Pictures

Rating: R
Stars: Olivia Colman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Kate McKinnon, Andy Samberg, Ncuti Gatwa, Sunita Mani, Zoë Chao, Jamie Demetriou, Delaney Quinn, Ollie Robinson, Hala Finley, Wells Rappaport, Allison Janney, Belinda Bromilow
Writer: Tony McNamara, based on the novel THE WAR OF THE ROSES by Warren Adler
Director: Jay Roach
Distributor: Searchlight Pictures
Release Date: August 29, 2025

Many romantic comedies are undone when the audience can’t believe that the main characters genuinely love each other. While not technically a romcom – it’s officially a dark comedy – THE ROSES suffers from an unusual opposite problem, which is that we never believe our main characters, Ivy (Olivia Colman) and Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch), truly hate each other.

We meet Ivy and Theo in the office of a marital counselor (Belinda Bromilow). The counselor has asked the couple to each name ten things they love about each other. Instead, they read from prepared lists. Theo’s are grudging concessions (“I’d rather live with you than with a wolf”), while Ivy’s are ferocious insults. The counselor is appalled. Ivy and Theo, however, burst into gales of laughter, both because of the counselor’s stricken reaction and because of the inventiveness of each other’s invective.

Flash back ten years to how they met. Theo is an architect at a London firm that ruins his designs; Ivy is a cook in a kitchen that won’t let her exercise her culinary inspirations. They run away to California together.

Ten years later, Ivy and Theo live in beautiful Mendocino, California (locations were in California and Devon, U.K.). He is now celebrated for his architectural work; Ivy stays home with their twins, Hattie (Delaney Quinn as a ten-year-old, Hala Finley as a teen) and Roy (Ollie Robinson as a ten-year-old, Wells Rappaport as a teen), cooking amazing meals and making architectural-model-shaped desserts for family and friends.

Theo purchases and restores a shuttered seaside restaurant for Ivy to run a few days a week. At first, customers are scarce. But one night, something happens that boosts the restaurant’s popularity into the stratosphere – at the same time Theo’s career somewhat literally crashes to pieces.

Humiliated and presently unemployable, Theo suggests that Ivy run the restaurant full-time, while he does a stint as stay-at-home parent. Ivy accepts.

And here is where THE ROSES starts to split into two movies: the one we’re watching, and the one we keep being told we’re watching.

THE ROSES is adapted from Warren Adler’s novel THE WAR OF THE ROSES, which was previously made into the 1989 Michael Douglas/Kathleen Turner film of that title. WAR was legendarily mean-spirited, whereas THE ROSES has a lot of sincere warmth and sentiment.

Screenwriter Tony McNamara’s dialogue is consistently hilarious, and Colman and Cumberbatch dive into the banter with expertise. Theo and Ivy share a sense of humor that survives pretty much everything they throw at it. Director Jay Roach showcases the charm and intelligence of his leads and the people they play, along with a lot of stunning scenery.

Is Theo upset at his professional setbacks? Yes, anyone would be. Is Ivy distracted by success? Again, yes. But are either of them over-reacting? When other characters comment on what they see as a marriage in trouble, we’re looking at two people who are going through a depressive patch or a bit of frenzied business activity. Ivy and Theo both arguably could use some Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, but nobody suggests this.

The fact that we know Ivy and Theo have respect for one another’s creativity also undercuts the notion that they feel fundamentally slighted. If someone honestly believes their mate is good at their life’s calling, that’s no small thing.

We wait for an actual war to break out, and it does in the form of retaliatory actions both public and private, but this happens well into the third act. These are vicious, sometimes gross, and eventually violent, but even here, Ivy and Theo admire one another’s audacity and expression.

By the finale, it’s not clear whether a particular situation is a deliberate act or an oversight on the part of the characters. It’s not even clear if this is intended to be clear.

THE ROSES is reliably snappy fun that is often surprisingly romantic. We just come out not knowing how we’re supposed to react to it overall.

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