The Roses

The original The War Of The Roses was a shock to the system: audiences had just seen stars Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas, along with director and supporting cast member Danny DeVito, in the amorous adventures Romancing The Stone and The Jewel Of The Nile. Everyone had certain expectations around happy-ever-afters that DeVito’s biting film refused to meet. Jay Roach’s remake, however, by definition comes with a different set of pressures and without a central cast who have an established history. He has his work cut out to update its story and characters and make us feel any narrative tension as the marital tension ratchets skyward. Luckily, he’s ensured it’s still funny.

Our central couple, Ivy (Olivia Colman) and Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch), have two romcom-friendly professions – chef and architect, respectively – when they meet, fall in love or at least lust, and move to the West Coast of the US to set up a home. Two children mean that she stays at home for a decade while his star rises, but after a professional disaster hits him just as she gets her big break, their roles reverse. Cue a shock from which the marriage cannot quite recover.

For all the verbal and physical violence and cynicism along the way, there’s a bleak, twisted romance to the finale that survives here.

The film’s biggest problem is that the bad behaviour of each spouse needs to be very carefully balanced, and at times here that equilibrium isn’t quite steady. Partly that’s because Colman is a more seasoned comedy actor and goes for laughs that sometimes make Ivy look more childish and irresponsible, but more seriously it’s because the ten years where she sacrificed her career for the kids are entirely off screen, so that we only see Theo taking responsibility while she devotes herself to work outside the home. Still, Cumberbatch leans hard enough into Theo’s self-pity and occasional pomposity to keep the scales from tipping entirely, so it mostly works.

Perhaps because of Colman’s innate warmth and Cumberbatch’s ability to be self-deprecating, it’s never quite as venomous as the original, but it does still manage to mix some shocks into its humour. The fact that the pair are British ex-pats among the clean-living, hyper-PC liberals of California allows for some lovely creative cursing in Tony McNamara’s script and a nice fish-out-of-water element. Still, for all the verbal and physical violence and cynicism along the way, there’s a bleak, twisted romance to the finale that survives here. This is really a positive admonition to keep a tight hold of whatever love you once had, remember why you’re together, and keep the lines of communication in your relationship open. The alternative could be fatal.