Director: Jay Roach
Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Colman, Andy Samberg, Allison Janney, Sunita Mani, Ncuti Gatwa, Kate McKinnon
Certificate: 15
Run Time: 105 mins

The Roses is a satirical black comedy directed by Jay Roach, a remake of the 1989 Danny DeVito film which was loosely based on a 1981 novel by Warren Adler. Roach is a dab hand at comedy, hailing all three Austin Powers films, Meet The Parents and Meet The Fockers (but fortunately not the terrible Little Fockers) and The Campaign – all masterpieces. Ok, Dinner for Schmucks was poor, but that’s otherwise a pretty impressive run. More recently, Roach has turned his hand to dramas, directing Trumbo and Bombshell, which were also both excellent.

This satirical black comedy stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman as Theo and Ivy Rose, an English couple who have relocated to California with two twin children. Theo is an architect, while Ivy is a chef, and the two have very different parenting styles. When Theo’s career comes to a crashing halt during a severe storm, Ivy picks up the slack and rapidly grows her restaurant business, which slowly draws the couple apart to increasingly icy results.

Although The Roses comfortably passes the six laugh test and Cumberbatch and Colman make for a prickly duo, the film is never as consistently funny as it needs to be. Roach’s film feels like it’s pulling in two different directions – screenwriter Tony McNamara (who wrote Poor Things and co-wrote The Favourite) has a distinctive way with words, which is at odds with the director’s more slapstick American brand of humour. While The Roses is never boring and has flashes of brilliance (the film’s opening, a dinnertime conversation exchange between guests, and scene where a character sneakily smokes cannabis are all great) it would have been better for it to either put all its eggs into either McNamara’s script or Roach’s humour rather than act as a compromise between the two.

Cumberbatch and Colman really carry the film, both turning in excellent performances. Colman’s proven many times to be a dab hand at comedy, but this is new territory for Cumberbatch, and he proves a worthy foil. The constant verbal sparring match between Cumberbatch and Colman is sharply written, and it’s satisfyingly cringeworthy to watch each character continue to dig themselves into a deeper hole. But both actors also bring plenty of heart – it’s easy to empathise with Colman’s Ivy when the growing pressure of her work begins to consume her, likewise you can sympathise with Cumberbatch’s Theo who has to bear the brunt of raising their children.

Andy Samberg and Kate McKinnon play Barry and Amy, friends of the Roses and while Samberg gets some great lines, McKinnon’s Amy is rather grating. Faring better are Ncuti Gatwa and Sunita Main and Jeffrey and Jane, two members of staff in Ivy’s restaurant, who are both clearly having fun and Allison Janney makes a lasting impression as Ivy’s divorce lawyer in the one scene she gets.

The film’s competently shot by Florian Hoffmeister, and he does a particularly adept job at showcasing the various houses the Roses live in during their marriage. Roach’s frequent collaborator composer Theodore Shapiro also turns in a playful score.

While The Roses is by no means a bad film, it falls short of the greatness Jay Roach has demonstrated in the past with the majority of his comedies. It’s perfectly passable in the moment and has a handful of memorable laughs, but it’s not consistently funny and there are some flat stretches. It may be that Roach is just the wrong director for this particular script because his brand of humour isn’t an obvious match for McNamara’s witty dialogue. Still, The Roses is fun in the moment and Cumberbatch and Colman make for a memorable duo but considering the director’s comedy calibre, it should have been better.