The Roses is a 2025 dark comedy directed by Jay Roach and written by Tony McNamara, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman as a married couple whose picture-perfect life collapses into open warfare. Distributed by Searchlight Pictures, it adapts Warren Adler's 1981 novel The War of the Roses and reimagines the 1989 film of the same name for a modern, dual-career marriage. The Roses opened in the United States and United Kingdom on August 29, 2025, runs 105 minutes, and grossed $52 million worldwide against a $30 million budget.
Roach builds the film almost entirely on the chemistry between its two leads, with McNamara's script trading the nihilism of the original for sharp dialogue about ambition, resentment, and what married people do to each other. The story relocates from Britain to Mendocino, California, following architect Theo Rose and restaurateur Ivy Rose as a single storm inverts their careers and turns their home into a battleground.
What is The Roses (2025) about?
Theo and Ivy meet in London, where Theo, an architect, is charmed by Ivy, an aspiring chef who dreams of moving to the United States to open her own place. He follows her across the Atlantic. Ten years later they are married with twins, Hattie and Roy, settled in Mendocino, and Theo gifts Ivy the property she needs to finally launch her restaurant.
The turn comes during a single storm. Theo's newly built naval history museum collapses, gutting his reputation, while the same weather drives a crowd into Ivy's restaurant, including a food critic whose rave review sends her business into overdrive. Theo loses his job and becomes a stay-at-home parent as Ivy becomes the breadwinner, and the imbalance curdles into resentment. He micromanages the children's diet and exercise, she feels frozen out of their lives, and their attempts to reconcile give way to a slow, escalating war.
Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman in The Roses
Benedict Cumberbatch plays Theo Rose, an architect whose identity is bound to his professional standing and who turns petty and controlling once that standing is stripped away. Olivia Colman plays Ivy Rose, a restaurateur who refuses to apologize for her overnight success even as it exposes every fault line in the marriage. The film leans almost entirely on the pair's chemistry, letting them volley insults and cruelty while keeping both characters recognizably human rather than cartoons.
On a side note, what is it about Benedict Cumberbatch's name? You could say any name with a BC combination and people know who you're talking about. Bernard Cumbersome? Bendydick Crumblesnatch? No matter how badly you butcher the name, people know you're referring to him.
The Roses supporting cast and characters
The supporting cast rounds out the couple's social world and eventual divorce. Kate McKinnon plays Amy and Andy Samberg plays Barry, friends of the Roses who are married to each other, with Barry later serving as Theo's divorce lawyer. Allison Janney plays Eleanor, Ivy's divorce lawyer, and Belinda Bromilow plays Janice, the couple's marriage counselor. Ncuti Gatwa plays Jeffrey, the front-of-house manager at Ivy's restaurant, and Sunita Mani plays Jane, her sous-chef. Zoë Chao and Jamie Demetriou play Sally and Rory, another couple in the Roses' circle, while Hala Finley and Wells Rappaport play the Rose twins, Hattie and Roy.
How does The Roses end?
Spoilers follow for the ending of The Roses.
Three years after Ivy bankrolls Theo's dream house, the twins leave for a sports school in Miami and the couple's frustration hardens into a feud. After Ivy humiliates Theo at their housewarming, Theo has an epiphany while saving a beached whale and asks for a divorce, wanting only the house. Ivy wants to leave him with nothing, and the two set out to ruin each other, getting Theo blacklisted from architecture and Ivy's restaurants shut down for health violations. The fight climaxes with an EpiPen standoff over a raspberry dessert, a gun, and a chase that destroys Ivy's prized Julia Child stove. Cornered, Theo admits he still loves Ivy and she says the same, but the wrecked stove has caused a gas leak. Oblivious, Theo asks the smart home to light the fireplace, and the screen cuts to white, leaving their fate deliberately unresolved.
Personally, I don't think the house explodes. This smart house can identify a car with two people in it coming up the driveway and lock Ivy in her room, but it can't detect a gas leak? I don't buy it.
Is The Roses based on The War of the Roses?
Yes. The Roses adapts Warren Adler's 1981 novel The War of the Roses and reimagines the 1989 film starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, which came from Searchlight's sister studio 20th Century Studios. McNamara has said he drew on both the novel and the earlier film but wanted to focus on what a couple does to each other while still married rather than only the divorce, which is why the novel is the credited source. The result keeps the premise of a marriage turned to combat while swapping the original's bleakness for contemporary comedy about dual careers and status.
The Roses reviews, Rotten Tomatoes score, and box office
The Roses drew mixed reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes it holds a 64 percent score from 195 critics with an average rating of 6.1 out of 10, and the site's consensus calls the mix of broad comedy and dark satire an uneasy fit while praising Colman and Cumberbatch. Metacritic lists a weighted score of 58 out of 100 from 38 critics, and audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave it a B+. Several critics, including NPR's Linda Holmes, argued that Roach's comedy background softened the satire of the novel and the 1989 film. Commercially it performed steadily rather than spectacularly, opening to $7.7 million over the Labor Day weekend in the United States and finishing with about $52 million worldwide. It later earned a BAFTA longlist nod for Outstanding British Film.
