#55: THE ROSES

 

STARRING: Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Colman, Andy Samberg and Kate McKinnon. Screenplay by Tony McNamara. Directed by Jay Roach. Budget $60 million. Running time 105 minutes.

Theo and Ivy (Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman) meet up, fall in love and move to America to pursue their dreams, he to become a renowned architect and she too maybe, one day, open up a little restaurant, but until then she's happy to be the stay-at-home mum bring up their two twins on her own. Theo quickly becomes successful and buys his wife a down-on-its-heels seafront establishment she renames "We've Got Crabs" and he builds an eccentric and cutting edge maritime museum which promptly collapses during a hurricane, on the same night Ivy's restaurant gets rave reviews and their fortunes change in one night. He becomes unemployable and she becomes the toast of the town. He stays at home bringing up their insufferable children to become fitness obsessed freaks, while she's flying around the world building an empire of fast-food establishments. After 10 years, he's a weak useless and failed husk of a man and she's the brightest star in the culinary firmament. Desperate for her husband to rekindle his passion she bank rolls his dream of creating a cutting edge family home overlooking the sea and that's where the rot sets in...

This is a remake of the vastly superior 1989 War of the Roses movie starring Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas and directed by Danny DeVito.

Although it starts very strongly, it sadly doesn't have the teeth to nail its landing. The film wins brownie-points for its cast, and for also taking time to show the life of Ivy and Theo's marriage but it doesn't seem prepared to go the whole hog when it comes to the nastiness of their marital decline. It sadly lacks the bite needed to elevate this to something more savage, something the original film did brilliantly. Here you laugh politely at the couple's antics but you don't recoil from their bile or hate. Indeed, there's never a real sense that they ever truly hate each other, they just seem a little peeved. That said, it's an absolute delight to watch Colman and Cumberbatch acting together. 

I wish the film had been able to play up the nasty aspects of the breakup, but it feels unsure how far it can go, something the original had no qualms about. This lacks the misery, the wanton vandalism, and glorious escalating violence of the former. And it's another of these modern so-called 'black-comedies', that's more a  sort of subtle charcoal grey amusement. 

The film also has a strange visual quality that feels artificial and despite being set in the US, the landscape feels more like Devon, plus the use of CGI backdrops makes the whole feel very fake. 

In the 1989 version, Jonathan and Barbara (the original couple) fight over the house and its contents of valuable antiques and because it, the house, plays such a dominant role throughout their lives together you understood and accepted the stakes, and you brought into the drama, sadly not so in this. The house doesn't even get built until the third act and as such it never feels as if means that much to them both, her in particular. When they finally confront each other over the arbitration table, I found myself thinking the only reason that Ivy wanted the house wasn't because she'd invested anything of her self in it beyond her money, it was just to deny him any ownership. In contrast, all he wants is the house, he's not after her multi-million dollar business empire and yet she refuses to accept the deal and that just doesn't make any sense to me, she openly hates the house, and save the vintage Julia Childs oven she installs in the kitchen she has nothing of herself invested in it at all.

Despite all that, I enjoyed the film I just didn't love it. It has some genuinely funny laugh-out-loud moments, but sadly not enough, The supporting cast is amusing, and I loved the performances, and enjoyed the breakdown antics, but I just wanted more of that, I wanted the japes to get darker and more dangerous, I wanted the stakes to keep rising and sadly they didn't and so when the ending arrived it just sort of  rolled to a halt, while the original crashed to it's conclusion.

7/10 needs arbitration.