This August, The Roses, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman, was released, and the movie deserves so much more love and attention than it’s been getting. A new take on the 1989 movie The War of the Roses (which was in turn adapted from a book of the same title), The Roses had a disappointing box office debut.
In the several months since the movie’s release, it hasn’t fared much better. Currently, The Roses’ Rotten Tomatoes scores are 65% with critics and a slightly better 79% with audiences. While these aren’t egregious scores by any means, they don’t reflect just how fun and entertaining this movie is.
The Roses Is Just Plain Fun
With both Colman and Cumberbatch leading, it shouldn’t be all that surprising that The Roses is downright hilarious or that the type of humor in the movie is a bit quirky and off-beat. Both actors are known for that style of comedy, akin to Cumberbatch’s role in Sherlock or Colman’s in Paddington in Peru.
Of course, the tone of this movie is different than either of those projects, as this story focuses on a married couple that once seemed perfect for each other only to become increasingly hostile and bitter towards one another. That might sound like a tale as old as time, and therefore perhaps a bit boring, but that isn’t the case.
Sure, The Roses leans on some very common if not universal ideas about love and marriage—especially when thinking about the dissolution of a marriage as it’s often shown on screen—but there’s never a dull moment in the movie, and Cumberbatch and Colman manage to bring something new to this classic tale.
It can’t be easy to play a couple who has begun to hate one another in an innovative way, but both actors keep their characters lovable and dynamic even as they are devolving further and further into childish (and, eventually, incredibly alarming) behavior. Is it absurdist? Yes. But it’s also plenty of fun.
The Cast Of The Movie Is Truly Star-Studded
Helping the movie remain engaging and entertaining even when it wades into familiar territory is the star-studded cast, full of not just renowned actors but specifically well-known, celebrated comedians. Playing opposite Cumberbatch and Colman, for example, are Andy Samberg and Kate McKinnon, another couple in the movie.
Like Cumberbatch and Colman, Samberg and McKinnon have very specific styles of comedy, no doubt developed in large part through their roles on Saturday Night Live, and their unique humor was yet another brilliant addition to the movie. In fact, McKinnon and Cumberbatch’s dynamic is among the movie’s funniest.
Perhaps because the actors were able to play off one another, with McKinnon bringing similar energy to that of her role as Weird Barbie in Barbie and Samberg’s character at times being reminiscent of beloved character Jake Peralta in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, everyone’s comedy seemed elevated—arguably, this is Cumberbatch’s best performance in a while.
You Won’t See The Ending Coming
A movie about a couple on the path to divorce might seem like it has one of two clear endings: either the couple stays together, or they get a divorce. However, The Roses’ ending manages to pull off something very difficult in a movie of this type; it catches audiences completely by surprise.
The couple’s behavior escalates, becoming outlandish, which culminates in a conclusion that truly feels genre-breaking. The best thing about this disruption of audience expectations is that it means the ending is far from predictable—something that can certainly be an issue in rom-coms.
For some, this shocking ending might seem a little too far-fetched, but The Roses does plenty to build up to the twist, which takes place swiftly, in approximately the last 15 minutes of the movie.
It’s still not going to feel realistic, necessarily, but it isn’t so far out of left-field that it feels unearned or poorly executed. If anything, it’s just more absurdist humor, and it really works.
What Went Wrong?
Given that these aforementioned elements came together and largely worked very well, it’s fair to ask why the movie didn’t perform better. Again, both in terms of its box office numbers and its current scores on Rotten Tomatoes, The Roses certainly can’t be considered a smash-hit.
There are likely a few factors at play. For one, the genre of the movie simply might not have pulled audiences in from the beginning, which would explain the low box office numbers. As mentioned, it’s very difficult to make a chaotic divorcing couple feel new, and that may have discouraged theater-goers.
In terms of audience and critic scores, there are definitely some aspects of the movie that could have been improved. While the humor is spot-on for most of the movie, the story did have its issues, particularly in terms of the plot and pacing. It’s difficult to keep track of how much time is passing, for example.
The at times scattered plot aside, though, The Roses really does deserve more recognition than it’s gotten in the last several months since its release, if not for the originality and humor, then at the very least for the cast, many of whom are at their best.
- Release Date
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August 29, 2025
- Director
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Jay Roach
- Writers
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Warren Adler, Tony McNamara
