Director: Jay Roach
Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Colman, Andy Samberg, Kate McKinnon
Screenplay: Tony McNamara
105 mins. Rated R for language throughout, sexual content, and drug content.

Divorce is traumatic, and making comedy about divorce is extremely difficult to juggle tonally. It’s already been successfully done with the adaptation of Warren Adler’s The War of the Roses in 1989, and now director Jay Roach (Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery) is approaching the same source material, with a screenplay from Tony McNamara (Poor Things). Aided by revelatory and wickedly funny performances from Benedict Cumberbatch (Spider-Man: No Way Home) and Olivia Colman (Puss in Boots: The Last Wish), The Roses is quite capably of mining its depressing and traumatic plot for laughs and some moving insight.

Theo Rose (Cumberbatch) is a successful architect working on a massive project which will be his next masterpiece, while his wife Ivy (Colman) has been raising the kids and trying to keep her middling restaurant from going under. One fateful night changes everything for the Roses, with Theo losing his job and Ivy’s restaurant gaining popularity simultaneously. Now, with the relationship dynamic adjusting to the new normal, the two former lovebirds begin picking away at each other’s insecurities, resulting in a destructive divorce deathmatch between the two.

The central strength of The Roses comes from these two central performances. Some pairings can be better with the love and others better with the anger, but Cumberbatch and Colman have tremendous chemistry with both, and it makes the entire experience more rich and ultimately tragic. There is love here between Theo and Ivy, even when the walls break down around them. It’s painful to see the demise of a career in Theo’s case, matched with the rise in stardom for Ivy, and it has a real Star is Born-level swap of responsibilities, which allows each performer to explore the characters nicely. They are each given the opportunity to see how the other side lives in their relationship roles.

There’s plenty to relate to in McNamara’s screenplay, with his writing mining the realism within the absurdity and satire on display. The examination of a slump in both Theo and Ivy’s careers is real and understandable. He writes passive aggressive characterizations so well, so that the audience is able to find frustration between the two, because ultimately, sometimes it’s better to the have the fight than avoid it. This combines with Roach’s directing; there’s always the chance to apologize right in front of them before it’s avoided. These are two immovable objects in firm belief of what is owed to them.

Cumberbatch and Colman are surrounded by a bevy of supporting players who mostly work, though it occasionally feels like they are in a different movie. Again, I love the idea that the friends of the couple all think they know better, and a lot of the humor works, but the movie is at its best when dealing with the central relationship. It seems like perhaps these characters were geared toward ensuring the film’s subjects didn’t get too dark, but they falter a bit here.

Jay Roach has a talent for finding tone and understanding the necessary shifts in tone that a film needs. It’s how he’s able to make Austin Powers a relatable character in the wildly silly films, and it’s how he makes such a fascinating and funny character dynamic in the Meet the Parents movies, and I believe he’s found that energy again here. There’s some wildly over-the-top shenanigans in The Roses, primarily as events spiral out of control in the back half of the movie, and his juggling of tonal shifts allowed me to laugh while also feeling tremendous sadness at the unraveling of this relationship. These are two real people feeling real pain, it’s just that we can laugh at the absurdity and energetic cruelty at the same time.

The Roses is a frequently uproarious comedy, but it works best as a satirical examination of the dissolution of a relationship. Cumberbatch and Colman are electrifying in their performances, each being likable while doing heinously unlikable acts. McNamara and Roach are a nice combination with a biting screenplay and a director who understands the material and elevates it nicely, even though the surrounding friends are a little inconsistent and sometimes out of place. Roach builds the intensity nicely throughout, and it ends of a wonderful cap that I hadn’t quite expected. While it won’t make for a great date night choice, it’s certainly a funny and surprisingly moving dramedy.

3.5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

• For my review of Jay Roach’s Bombshell, click here.