Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch might be great scene partners in any number of films, but not “The Roses.”
Mismatched from the beginning, they just keep digging a hole until there’s no plot to uncover.
Considering it’s based on “The War of the Roses,” that’s too bad. The first film, starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, had force and style. This just boasts a Nancy Meyers-like house and a clever cameo by Allison Janney.
Cumberbatch and Colman play the Roses, a couple with differing interests in life. He’s an architect, she’s a chef. When his career seems like it’s on a high, he helps her launch a crab restaurant. His career tanks, hers thrives and the bickering begins.
While she racks up success, he throws himself into their children, making them athletic machines. Meanwhile, she funds his home dream. The house is amazing (it even features a control unit that adjusts everything but their fighting) and a tipping point. She gets Julia Child’s stove; he embraces an antique table with a dagger embedded in it. Get where this is going?
Friends try to referee, but that doesn’t work until a dinner party starts the food fight and leads to divorce court.
Theo Rose receives representation from an old friend (played by Andy Samberg, who also seems out of place). Ivy Rose gets Janney, who steals every minute she’s there.
Then the two enter destruction mode, and “The Roses” becomes a fight to the finish. Literally.
Independently, Cumberbatch and Colman have had great success with comedy. In play with one another, they’re deadly. Both speak too quickly; both look like they’d have nothing in common. Even some age-erasing AI (to recall the early years) doesn’t make sense.
When the children go off to compete, the parents don’t even bother to follow their progress. They’re too bent on revenge and can’t quite get past their own egos.
Director Jay Roach tries to temper the smackdown by tossing in others — like Kate McKinnon as Samberg’s lusty partner — but diversions don’t dilute the nastiness that never lets up.
Colman tosses crabs in his bathwater; Cumberbatch ruins her beloved culinary creations.
That house (and a museum Theo designs) is great fun to explore. An Architectural Digest walk-through would be infinitely better than a home-cooked meal.
Perhaps with other partners, Cumberbatch and Colman could have raised a better film. This one, however, has been left in the sun too long to even consider pruning.
