The Roses follows Theo and Ivy Rose, a married couple whose life looks flawless from the outside. Theo is a celebrated architect. Ivy is a chef whose restaurant career is finally taking off. The trouble starts when Theo's biggest project collapses and his career stalls at the exact moment Ivy's begins to climb. That reversal, the successful husband suddenly stuck at home while the wife becomes the name people know, is the crack that the rest of the film widens into a full domestic cold war. Director Jay Roach keeps the marriage warm and funny for a long stretch before the resentment takes over, and the real divorce blowup is held back until the third act, so anyone walking in expecting the couple to be smashing the house apart from minute one is going to wait a while.
The Roses cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Colman, and a stacked ensemble
Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman, who play Theo and Ivy, carry The Roses, and the film knows it. The two of them trade insults with the timing of people who have been married for years and still enjoy landing a hit. Around them, the supporting bench is deep. Andy Samberg plays Barry, Theo's friend who later becomes his divorce lawyer. Kate McKinnon plays Amy, Barry's wife. Ncuti Gatwa plays Jeffrey, the front of house manager at Ivy's restaurant. Allison Janney turns up as Eleanor, Ivy's divorce lawyer. Sunita Mani, Zoë Chao, and Jamie Demetriou round out the friend group. It is a lot of comedic firepower for a movie that mostly wants to point two great actors at each other and let them go.
With Allison Janney being advertised as much as she was, I was disappointed she only got one scene. Don't get me wrong, it was a hilarious one, but more Allison Janney is never a bad thing.
Is The Roses a remake of The War of the Roses?
Yes. The Roses is a new take on The War of the Roses, the 1989 film starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner and directed by Danny DeVito, which itself came from Warren Adler's 1981 novel of the same name. Tony McNamara, who wrote The Favourite and Poor Things, moves the story into a modern setting with modern gender politics baked in, right down to the career reversal driving the whole thing. The 1989 version was famously bleak and mean. This one plays lighter and closer to a studio comedy for long stretches, which is the single biggest thing longtime fans of the original tend to argue about. You do not need to have seen the DeVito version to follow this one.
Jay Roach and Tony McNamara behind The Roses
Jay Roach has a strange, wide résumé, from Austin Powers and Meet the Parents to Bombshell and Trumbo, so a marriage comedy with teeth sits comfortably inside his range. Pairing him with McNamara's script is the smart part, because McNamara writes cruelty as comedy about as well as anyone working right now. When The Roses lands, it is usually because a line is nastier and funnier than it needed to be. When it wobbles, it is usually the tone, the film trying to be a broad crowd-pleaser and a bitter portrait of a dying marriage in the same scene.
Where to watch The Roses
The Roses hit theaters on August 29, 2025, distributed by Searchlight Pictures, and runs 105 minutes. In the United States it streams on Hulu, and on Hulu via Disney+ for bundle subscribers, which is where I watched it. It is also available to rent or buy on Prime Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home, with Blu-ray and DVD editions in circulation. Streaming catalogs shift, so it is worth checking current availability before assuming where it lives today.
Is The Roses worth watching?
The honest read is that The Roses is a two-hander held up almost entirely by its leads. The structure asks for patience, the meltdown everyone is waiting for is back-loaded into the third act, and the tone swings between genuine dark comedy and something softer and more conventional. What carries it is Cumberbatch and Colman, who are good enough that watching them slowly turn on each other is worth the ticket even when the script around them is uneven.
I think the slow burn was a nice addition and from what I remember about the original, a much different take. The only thing that would have made the slow burn better is if the third act was longer. Seeing more of the back and forth between them as well as more Allison Janney as Ivy's lawyer would have been a benefit to the movie. Overall I give the movie a 7 out of 10.
