The Roses: Movie Review

Cast: Olivia Colman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Allison Janney, Andy Samberg, Kate McKinnon 

Director: Jay Roach  

The Roses thrives on one thing alone - its chemistry between starsAs ivy and Theo, the pair excel in a story that feels like it hangs so much on the fact seemingly decent people actively hate each other and little else around them.

When Theo and Ivy meet on a whim and run off together, they seem to have a connection. She's a would-be chef and he's an architect. But after Theo's latest building is an unmitigated disaster, he finds himself resentful, resented and out of work.

So trading places with his wife, he becomes a house husband while her culinary star ascends. However, this sets them on a course for estrangement that soon escalates.

The Roses works when it sees the pair trading unexpected barbs, their acrid delivery barely masking the simmering hatred.

As a portrait of relationship micro-aggressions and creeping discontent, there's a lot that's on the nose here, masked in the kind of behaviour you'd least expect. (Though in truth, Colman delivered a similar performance in Wicked Little Letters).

Elsewhere, the film seems less interested in building up characters around them and more caricatures that feel hollow.

Kate McKinnon delivers her trademark shtick as a weird out there friend that seems to be in a borderline toxic relationship with Andy Samberg's Barry.

And Alison Janney has a cameo that scorches the scene but leaves you feeling there's more that the screenplay could have taken from the original 1989 hit The War of the Roses.

Weirdly, The Roses is fine, bordering on enjoyable in parts - but there's a feeling it could have had more heft if the script were better.

As it is the only Roses in the thorns of this are Colman and Cumberbatch - though some in relationships may feel some of the truths on screen may hit a little too close to home.