The Roses: Colman and Cumberbatch shine in funny, literate remake

The original War of the Roses, starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner was hilarious in the worst possible way, thanks to the heartless direction of co-star Danny De Vito.

No punches pulled, no quarter given, it was war to the end and to the death. So, when Austin Powers director Jay Roach announced a remake, it was generally expected to be a bit feeble.

This one is still set in California, though stars Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch are both allowed to play English.

Before they met, Ivy was a jobbing cook, while Theo was a wildly successful architect. They fall in love and take off to the States. Theo designs a prestigious museum, Ivy sets up a small, sea-food restaurant. They have two adorable kids.

And then, in the blink of an eye, the weather changes - literally, in fact. A storm destroys Theo’s museum, and his career plummets drastically.

And the same storm drives a crowd of food influencers to Ivy’s restaurant. They love it, the word gets out, and suddenly she’s the superstar of the family.

And it’s safe to say, neither of them handles their change of fortunes particularly well. Without a job, the usually buttoned-up Theo throws himself into bitter resentment and turning the kids into little versions of him.

While Ivy revels in the rock and roll lifestyle, and a few years of “me” time.

In the hands of – well, virtually anyone else – these characters would be heading for the easy target stereotypes that generally populate American, battle-of-the-sexes comedies.

But they’re not in those hands. After several years of being in everything, I’d forgotten just how good both Colman and Cumberbatch could be.

Because they’re both naturally funny as well as great actors, they don’t have to work at the jokes. They just play the characters as they’re written and – this was a bit different – as likeable as they possibly could too.

As you can imagine, this becomes a challenge once the rot starts to set into the marriage.

In the original War of the Roses, once battle is joined, the film took gleeful pleasure taking each hostile step to the next, awful level. By contrast, The Roses keeps offering hope to the couple that it could conceivably work out.

Even when Ivy and Theo cross the line into divorce territory.

Ironically in a film about a warring couple, the support characters – Ivy and Theo’s American, so-called friends – are so much less likeable than they are.

These are couples who choose to stay together for all the wrong reasons, it seems.

Kate McKinnon in particular leans into making the predatory Amy as vindictive as possible to her husband Barry played by Andy Samberg.

But meanwhile, even at the height of their hostility – and it gets pretty high – it’s hard not to note that Ivy and Theo are often amused by each other’s excesses.

Of course, in the last act the excesses start turning up to eleven.

If I have a complaint, it’s that many of the best sight-gags featured heavily in the trailer – and goodness knows it was a trailer that got a fair old thrashing all year.

But it was still a film that gave me far more pleasure than I was expecting, thanks to not just the two leads, but also to a literate, funny and – believe it or not – decent script about relationships by scriptwriter Tony McNamara.

He wrote The Favourite and Poor Things. Personally, I enjoyed The Roses rather more than either of those Oscar-winning films. But maybe I was just in the mood for a good comedy this week.