The Roses - Review 

Rating: 2 out of 5

THE presence of British stalwarts Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman cannot prevent The Roses from being a colossal disappointment.

A remake of the 1989 Michael Douglas-Kathleen Turner feel-bad comedy The War of the Roses, which in itself was adapted from the 1981 novel of the same name by Warren Adler, The Roses updates the story to feel more contemporary. But in doing so also feels even more extreme and vitriolic.

What’s more, the pacing is uneven so that the decline into hatred feels a long time coming and then feels rushed.

The story follows Ivy and Theo (Colman and Cumberbatch), two ultra successful business people: the former a “genius chef”, the latter a visionary architect.

At first, they enjoy idyllic existence built on the fruits of their labour. Ivy is encouraged to open a seafront restaurant, provocatively called We Got Crabs, while Theo is applying his vision to a waterside naval museum, which includes a showpiece roof design shaped like a sail.

Disaster strikes for Theo, however, when a freak storm destroys the museum and, with it, Theo’s reputation, prompting Ivy to take the lead financially (the same storm freakishly puts her quiet restaurant on the map) and Theo to stay home and look after the kids.

But as tensions mount between them over the toll of their various roles, Ivy invites Theo to also design their dream home and rebuild his name. Alas, things continue to spiral in line with the expectations surrounding her high-flying career and his ego.

Directed by Jay Roach, of Austin Powers and Meet The Parents fame, The Roses is made watchable thanks to the performances of Colman and Cumberbatch, who are never less than committed, and who clearly enjoy working together (whether falling in love or out of it).

The subversion of some of the book’s sticking points, with Colman’s matriarch now lamenting the cost that her career has on her family time, as opposed to having to sacrifice it to stay at home as a mum, also adds to the contemporary vibe and succeeds on putting a different spin on things.

But the film loses points for far more. For starters, Tony McNamara’s script errs more towards the crass and abusive, with many jibes resorting to sexual degradation: a dinner party in which several couples take it in turns to dish out the put-downs to each other is just plain painful to watch and deeply unfunny.

But so too are many of the insults, which aim for a Veep/Thick Of It style level of spite without any of the sophistication.

To add to the shortcomings, neither Theo nor Ivy are particularly likeable, let alone sympathetic. While the lack of a narrator, as in Danny DeVito’s presence in the original serving as a cautionary tale, also negates the film’s overall likeability.

Rather, it positions some quality co-stars in promising places - such as Andy Samberg and Kate McKinnon as friends with their own marital problems, or Allison Janney as a formidably aggressive divorce lawyer - but then does nothing with them.

Janney appears all too fleetingly, while Samberg’s free flowing wit is curtailed by a lack of genuinely funny material, and McKinnon is content to lean into her weirdness without - again - really making it count for anything.

A sequence involving the rescue of a whale feels desperate and out of keeping with the overall tone (the film lacks any soul, so attempts to find any spirituality are doomed to fail), while the finale involving an unlikely reunion ruined by the violent circumstances Ivy and Theo have created, just lacks any sense of the irony it is seeking.

What’s left is a film that goes through the motions, yet lacks any real spark or feeling. It’s crass for the sake of it.

Certificate: 15

Running time: 1hr 45mins