The Roses–Scenes from a Marriage
An adaptation of Warren Adler’s novel The War of the Roses, The Roses, produced by Danny DeVito, is the first remake since the 1989 film starring Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas. The main theme chronicles the dissolution of a marriage once felt to be idyllic, now transmuting into poison.
The Roses opens with a consultation in the psychiatrist’s office: “I suppose sometimes I do hate you… Sporadic hatred.” Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Ivy Rose (Olivia Colman) are exchanging venomous insults at each other. They are pleased and smiling all the while they are determined to infuriate the other while sitting self-congratulatory, on the psychiatrist’s sofa.
Flashbacks furiously jump into the story– at times, disruptively. In the early days of their marriage, we see that both Theo and Ivy are creatives with little income but immense joy and love for each other. He’s an up-and-coming architect and she dreams of being a chef. Theo is the breadwinner while Ivy stays at home raising their young son and daughter. She channels her culinary skills into baking desserts that are edible architectural models for Theo’s designs.
However, a spectacular failure of one of his designs sends Theo’s career into a death spiral. With few options, Theo invests his desire for recognition and success into a seafood restaurant for Ivy–We’ve Got Crabs. Fast forward three years and the former stay-at-home mom is a world-renowned chef with a franchise of restaurants and high-octane media visibility.
For some unknown reason, Theo becomes an exercise freak channeling his energy and drive into his young son and daughter. What remains unsaid is whether this is a revenge tactic to be superdad while Ivy can’t be at home with the kids.
The most interesting emotional engine of The Roses is the cost of swapping traditional domestic roles for personal development. Ivy is the breadwinner and Theo seems to want to–at least at the beginning–cheerfully support his wife’s phenomenal success. However, Theo’s outward feelings are a disguised fever dream for dominance. The grudges build with a momentum of their own. Old wounds are weaponized.
“The neighbor’s dog shit is in the laundry, the kids have got nits again, and my left eye’s twitching.” Theo complains when Ivy wants to share good news about some accomplishment with him. She gingerly backs down from celebrating her success.
Oblivious to how Ivy might have had the same feelings when she couldn’t follow her dreams of being a chef are beyond his awareness. For all his passion and intellect, Theo is entitled, whining about his need for validation. In spite of Ivy informing her husband that she felt similarly, their battlefield always seems absurdly one-sided.
“Ivy likes to leave a little bit of herself in everything she does.”
Their battlefield is fundamentally fierce, filled with weapons of scathing fury and contemptuous exchanges. The final scenes, instead of sustaining the bleak humor intended, are a sprawling mess.
While both Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman, with their formidable acting prowess, give acceptable performances, the viewer might be persuaded that The Roses is better than it is, which is not very good. Paddling along, never quite hitting the mark for a memorable film. The Roses is, in the final analysis, bland and clumsy.
Availability: Hulu