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![](\"https:\/\/cdn.craft.cloud\/26ed9c78-feb7-4ee6-8ddf-262fd7bafb2d\/assets\/tco\/images\/Benedict-Cumberbatch-and-Olivia-Colman-in-The-Roses-courtesy-of-Disney.jpg\")
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Marriage and death are inescapably linked. The only way matrimony technically succeeds is through the \u200b\u201c<\/span>till death do us part\u201d loophole built into the vows. In\u00a0<\/span>The Roses<\/i>, Jay Roach\u2019s remake of Warren Adler\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>The War of the Roses<\/i>, death often feels like a\u00a0more appealing prospect than enduring the hellish union of Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Ivy (Olivia Colman).<\/span><\/p>\n The couple meet in a\u00a0steamy, charming encounter in the kitchen of Ivy\u2019s restaurant, where she is an ambitious young chef and he a\u00a0celebrated architect. Over time, their power dynamic flips: Ivy becomes the family\u2019s star earner while Theo\u2019s career collapses after a\u00a0very public humiliation, leaving him to channel his energy into raising their children and constructing an impossibly chic dream home. On paper, it\u2019s a\u00a0reasonable compromise; on screen, Roach\u2019s black comedy suggests there is no compromise without resentment, no sacrifice without scorn, and no holy union without the risk of descending into\u00a0hell.<\/span><\/p>\n The 1989<\/span> original thrived on a\u00a0tone of escalating absurdity, Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner pushing marital breakdown to operatic extremes, she the neglected housewife who hates her husband, he an ambitious breadwinner who can\u2019t win her back. Roach and screenwriter Tony McNamara update that formula with a\u00a0contemporary edge: viral humiliation, influencer chefs, and a\u00a0light dusting of late stage capitalism. If the film doesn\u2019t radically deepen the conversation around the gender politics or financial intricacies of marriage, it does find new textures in the way ambition corrodes intimacy.<\/span><\/p>\n But regardless of whether its insights have any lasting profundity, Cumberbatch and Colman give the film a\u00a0pulse, the intensity of their bond is never in doubt, whether in love or in loathing. Their chemistry peaks during therapy sessions where, even as they savagely catalogue each other\u2019s faults, they can\u2019t help but delight in each other\u2019s wit. It\u2019s extraordinary that this is the first time the pair have appeared on screen together and the film is at its best whenever they share a\u00a0scene, proving greater together than the sum of their formidable parts.<\/span><\/p>\n That alchemy doesn\u2019t extend to the supporting cast. A\u00a0seasoned ensemble including Andy Samberg, Allison Janney, and Ncuti Gatwa is criminally underused, relegated to bland dialogue and reaction shots. Visually, the film has more to chew on. The couple\u2019s dream house (complete with Julia Child\u2019s original stove) is exquisite enough to justify fighting over, but also a\u00a0sly metaphor: its precarious cantilevered design and tilting windows feel like warnings of a\u00a0relationship on the brink. Elsewhere, though, the script stumbles, their spectacularly bland children, Theo\u2019s unlikely decade-long internet infamy, and Ivy\u2019s seafood empire, \u200b\u201c<\/span>We\u2019ve Got Crabs,\u201d a\u00a0joke that starts bad and yet grows even less funny with each repetition.<\/span><\/p>\n Still, the precision of Colman and Cumberbatch\u2019s comic timing, and Roach\u2019s steady stream of gags, sustain a\u00a0current of giggles. Like Theo and Ivy, the film can\u2019t quite recapture the romance of the past, but it leaves you yearning for an era when mid-budget, starry comedies weren\u2019t such an endangered species. And if the Roses\u2019 marriage is doomed to end in death, the film makes a\u00a0solid case that the ambitious adult comedy deserves resurrection.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\nGet more Little White\u00a0Lies<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n