Now this is a funny idea for a remake of one of our bitterest, darkest satires about the pains of marriage: What if we spent some serious time in the salad days of our central relationship? Such is the somewhat bold conceit of Jay Roach’s “The Roses,” a reimagining (and truly so) of Warren Adler’s novel “The War of the Roses” and, to a lesser extent, Danny DeVito’s incredibly funny 1989 hit film of the same name. On paper, this may sound silly and strange — isn’t the joy of “The War of the Roses,” uh, the war? — but Roach and stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman find such fun in the happy days that it nearly distracts from what’s inevitable.
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Nearly.
Armed with a script from Tony McNamara (“The Favourite,” “Poor Things”), Roach’s film opens far from those happy days, with Theo Rose (Cumberbatch) and Ivy Rose (Colman) going head to head at a couple’s counseling session that is actually at its best when Ivy is calling her husband the c-word. Ah, British humor! But while their therapist is horrified by the tension and name-calling before her, going so far as to announce that the Roses are beyond repair, the two can’t help but giggle about the whole thing.
Zipping us back in time, we soon see how this all began: with a meet-cute for the ages, but one that also hints at what might tear these two apart in the coming years. Theo is an architect bummed about the state of his work, forced to celebrate the completion of a soulless apartment building at a glitzy lunch with his coworkers. When he sneaks off for a break, he ends up in the kitchen, right in front of a smiley chef Ivy, busy prepping a salmon carpaccio and dealing with her own professional worries. What if, they wonder within mere seconds of meeting each other, they just ran off to America together?
If you’re willing to take the plunge on that particular (and peculiar) plot movement, you’ll likely vibe with what’s to come. Ten years later, Theo and Ivy’s American gamble has paid way off. Happily ensconced in California’s Mendocino County (the film actually shot on location in Devon in the southwest of England, so while the film’s locales look absolutely stunning, they sure as hell don’t look like Northern California; this is no disrespect to fertile NorCal, but that place does not have cliffs like these), Theo’s career is booming, their spunky twins seem happy, and Ivy has turned her attention to cooking for fun.
And yet, little cracks have begun to appear. Theo is still holding out hope to one day build the family’s dream house, Ivy’s life seems mostly relegated to being a wife and mother, and it sure seems as if the couple have, well, discordant ideas about parenting. McNamara weaves these bits in well, and Cumberbatch and Colman — so naturally giddy around each other — slowly start to, if not come apart, at least poke at each other.
When Theo opts to spend their house money on a seafood restaurant for Ivy, it’s the first step toward their undoing. And when Theo’s latest project — a massive museum dedicated to sea-faring life and shaped like a ship — literally collapses during a particularly bad storm (an event that immediately goes viral), ending his own professional dreams, it’s just another nail in the coffin. While Adler’s book and DeVito’s movie imagined Mrs. Rose as a rising catering star, Roach’s film turns her into a massive culinary brand, with Ivy’s success propelling her toward the very top of the food world heap. One day she’s making Big Ben-shaped cookies at home, the next, she’s jet-setting with David Chang.
This does not sit well with Theo. While previous incarnations of the story provided the Roses with a pair of nearly-grown children, McNamara’s script ages the kiddos down (Hattie and Roy, played by Delaney Quinn and Ollie Robinson as ten-year-olds, with Hala Finley and Wells Rappaport taking over when they turn 13), providing a new dimension to Theo and Ivy’s problems. As she’s off setting up new restaurants — aided by longtime employees, played by Sunita Mani and Ncuti Gatwa, none of them bothered by the fact that the chain is called “We Got Crabs” — newly-minted stay-at-home dad Theo is busy remaking the kids in his image. That means lots of physical activity, fewer sugary desserts.
Such are the seemingly small disagreements that start to chip away at their marriage. And while much of this might sound deadly serious, Roach’s film is frequently very funny. Moments in which the Roses are nitpicking at each other — a bit involving some ill-advised donuts is great — stand up to bigger comedic setpieces that bond them together, such as a trip to a local gun club with their loopy American pals (Andy Samberg, Kate McKinnon, Zoë Chao, and Jamie Demetriou). But while these sequences are smart and amusing, they also continually sand away the most bitter bits of the original story at the film’s heart.
Or, again, where is the war?
Oh, it’s coming, but while the genuinely horrifying and also extremely funny dinner party that arguably tips everything over the edge ranks among some of the best comedic work of Roach, Cumberbatch, and Colman’s careers, what follows feels at odds with everything that’s happened before. That McNamara has written a truly new spin on Adler’s novel is genuinely refreshing, but the lighter tone and greater reliance on actual romance between its leads makes what’s to come all the harder to swallow.
DeVito’s film wasn’t afraid to get dark, deep, and mean from the jump, but in the last act of Roach’s film, the attacks that Theo and Ivy launch against each other surprise, and not always in entertaining ways. It may sound silly to wonder if this take on “The Wars of the Roses” is too cruel, but that’s precisely how it feels. Too cruel, too pointed, and way too out-there, at least in the world that Roach and McNamara have previously knit together. It’s all fun and games, until someone gets hurt.
Grade: B-
Searchlight Pictures will release “The Roses” in theaters on Friday, August 29.
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