The Roses

Jay Roach’s latest film is a cocktail of dark comedy, marital warfare, and blisteringly sharp one-liners that anyone in a long-term relationship might recognise (and perhaps store away for later use). Sure, the trailers and social clips gave away a handful of the funniest moments, but don’t worry, the film has plenty more up its sleeve. Beneath the steady stream of gags, digs and shots fired, what unfolds is a surprisingly gripping breakdown of a decades-long marriage that’s as emotionally taxing as it is entertaining.

The oxymoronic on-screen chemistry between Olivia Colman & Benedict Cumberbatch left you feeling this relationship would fall only one of two ways: is this a recipe for disaster or will Theo & Ivy be cooking on gas? Both actors are at the top of their game: Colman swings effortlessly between vulnerability and acerbic humour, while Cumberbatch captures the charm, ego, and unraveling of a man who is stuck in the past and struggling to move forwards. Together, they deliver the kind of performances that make the film feel both funny and painfully true.

What makes The Roses refreshing is that it avoids easy villains. Neither Ivy nor Theo is blameless, but neither is irredeemable either. Their struggles juggling ambition, identity, and parenthood feel deeply relatable. The question at the heart of the film isn’t simply “who’s right?” but rather, how much of yourself do you give up to keep a family afloat, and is the trade-off ever truly equal? It ultimately puts into question the compatibility between the two from the offset with differing lifestyles, wants and ways of life.

Adding an extra layer of bite is the cultural clash woven throughout. Theo and Ivy’s distinctly British humour, laced with sarcasm, understatement, and the kind of cutting remarks that sting long after they land, is both their shared language and their sharpest weapon. In private, it unites them, a reminder of who they once were together. In public, especially against the backdrop of American suburbia, it sets them apart. Their wit is often misunderstood, mistranslated, or dismissed by their peers, and the gulf between their cultural roots and their current environment becomes a subtle but persistent strain. For British audiences, this element of the film feels especially rewarding; the barbed asides and dry observations resonate not only as laughs but also as markers of identity, as if humour itself becomes one of the things Theo and Ivy are in danger of losing.

Unfortunately, that cultural richness and the taut central performances are undermined by the ensemble orbiting around them. On paper, the supporting cast looks like a comedic dream team - Kate McKinnon, Andy Samberg, Jamie Demetriou, Zoë Chao - but in practice, their characters are little more than thin sketches. The Roses’ American friends exist mostly to prop up the central drama, occasionally popping in to remind us that there are marriages even more chaotic than Theo and Ivy’s, but offering little else. They hang at the edges of the story without meaningful arcs or memorable moments, leaving the impression that these immensely capable comedians have been wasted. Rather than enriching the narrative, they clutter it, serving as reminders of a bigger world without adding any real weight or texture to it.

Even when these characters are meant to provide comic relief, the results feel jarringly out of step with the rest of the film. Crude innuendos and contrived running jokes land with a thud against the razor-sharp wit of the central couple. The tonal mismatch is distracting: it’s as if two very different comedies are playing out side by side, and only one of them works. The same is true of the younger “woke” voices introduced through Jane and Jeffrey, played by Ncuti Gatwa and Sunita Mani. Their perspective, presumably designed to modernise the narrative with fresh generational insight, instead feels shoehorned in. Their dialogue is on-the-nose, their presence barely consequential, and their roles ultimately reduce to caricature: a shame, given the calibre of the actors involved.

The film works best when it strips all that away and focuses squarely on Theo and Ivy. Their sparring is not only the emotional engine but also the tonal anchor; when they are centre stage, the humour and drama are seamlessly interwoven. Roach clearly understands that the heart of the story lies in their contradictions - two people whose love language is humour, but whose ambition and resentments erode their bond over time. In this respect, the film succeeds as both a comedy and a tragedy: it makes you laugh at the absurdities of marriage even as it makes you wince at how painfully real they feel.

What lingers after the credits is not the throwaway gags from the supporting cast, but the intensity of Colman and Cumberbatch’s performances. Together, they capture the unsettling truth that long-term relationships rarely end with a single, dramatic break. More often, they unravel thread by thread: a missed opportunity here, an unsaid apology there, and eventually the accumulation becomes unbearable. Their portrayal is so textured, so lived-in, that you believe completely in the decades of history between them, the highs, the lows, and the quiet compromises that both sustain and suffocate.

In the end, The Roses is far more than a marital comedy dressed up with one-liners. It’s a sharp, layered exploration of what happens when ambition collides with intimacy, when compromise curdles into resentment, and when humour, the very thing that once bound two people together, becomes the weapon that drives them apart. Jay Roach doesn’t always keep the tonal balance steady, and the supporting cast often feels like a missed opportunity, but the central relationship is so compelling that the film survives its weaker elements. Funny, biting, and uncomfortably close to home, The Roses is at once entertaining and disquieting, reminding us that in love, as in comedy, timing is everything.

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