Love is a Battlefield

The Roses is technically a remake of 1989 black comedy, "The War of the Roses", but sticks far less closely to the source novel than its predecessor, with director Jay Roach and writer Tony McNamara bringing a drier, more understated tone to the humour. Add in pitch-perfect performances from Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman in the central roles and you have a fantastically fun hundred-odd minutes.

After briefly seeing disillusioned architect Theo (Cumberbatch) and ambitious chef Ivy (Colman) first meet, the film skips us forward a decade to the now-married pair having abandoned their native UK to live their dream life in America. Theo is on the verge of revealing his architectural masterpiece while Ivy is cooking outrageously elaborate cakes in her role as stay-at-home mum to their two children. A freak storm ends up flipping their lives around and Ivy's chef career hits the big time while Theo holds down the fort at home and resentments slowly accumulate over the years as Ivy fully embraces her new status and Theo moulds the children into disciplined, ambitious workaholics.

This is a slower, more nuanced take on a relationship breakdown than the Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner starring original. While they quickly escalated to outright hostility, our lead couple here are, on the surface at least, trying their best to make things work for the vast majority of the runtime, with all the antagonistic prank-pulling that made up a lot of the trailers reserved for the last portion of the film. What we have instead is, fittingly, a much more British take on hostility, as the pair undercut their cheery outward personas with sly putdowns and barbed platitudes. It's hilariously entertaining and culminates in one of the most deliciously awkward dinner scenes you'll ever see. Witnessing Colman and Cumberbatch exchange withering glances and cold comments is like watching prime Borg and McEnroe go back and forth over the net. The writing cleverly factors in the performers backgrounds (Colman comes from a more overtly comedic background, while Cumberbatch is more of a dramedy guy) into the character, with Ivy's "silliness" one of the things that increasingly grates on Theo and his comedy coming from repressed frustration.

It's good that the central performances are so strong since the film's success hinges on both parties being sympathetic enough for neither to be seen as the villain. We skip over the time when Ivy is sacrificing her career for the family so she appears to be the one mostly getting what she wants, but she is also the one who makes the most effort to sustain the marriage. From that perspective, sulky Theo may be less sympathetic but it's clear his antagonism is born of frustration not malice. It's possible some people will identify more with one or the other, but the script does a good job of representing both points of view without making either of them wishy-washy.

There is a strong supporting cast, including a cheery but bleak Andy Samberg and sexed up Kate McKinnon as the couple's friends, whose own relationship seems outwardly even more dysfunctional than the Roses. Both have some very funny moments and the relationship lends to some fish out of water comedy as the Brits and the Americans hang out. Theo and Ivy are unnerved at a visit to a shooting range as their liberal companions try to downplay how much they love guns and some American friends try to replicate the British duo's "playful" banter, with hilariously blunt results.

The main complaints against The Roses are likely to come from viewers who wanted more of the outright physical antagonism shown in the trailers, or those who identified strongly with a particular spouse, making them actively dislike the other. While these are perfectly valid personal responses, they shouldn't overshadow a fantastically crafted and performed satire of the innate disappointment of marriage and parenthood that is also one of the funniest films of the year.

8 perfectly safe flags on 10 buildings.

Comments

Wasted Men

From Scum to Starred Up, neither the big nor small screen are short of brutally frank depictions of life behind British bars. Wasteman adds a taut, modern take to the pile and shows that life isn't getting any easier inside. Philip Barantini (creator of Boiling Point and Adolescence) is on board as a producer so you know it's going to feel real and the Safdie brothers were at one point attached to direct, so you know it's going to be gut-clenchingly tense. It doesn't disappoint on either front. David Jonsson plays long term convict Taylor. A timid drug addict, he cuts the hair of the top-dog inmates in return for a regular fix and is existing rather than living as the years of his sentence tick by when he gets some unexpected news. Prison overcrowding means he is up for early release, provided he can keep his nose clean for a couple of weeks, something made increasingly tricky by the arrival of his new cellmate Dee (Tom Blyth). Dee encourages Taylor to make contact wit...

More Money More Killing

How to Make a Killing is loosely based on 1949 British crime comedy Kind Hearts and Cornets (which is in turn an adaptation of 1907 novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal). In a world of remakes, reboots and adaptations, that is pretty interesting source material and could almost qualify as an original idea. Unfortunately, the imagination mostly stops there and the film isn't funny or insightful enough to rise above "it's fine" territory. Glenn Powell is Becket Redfellow, a suit salesman who grew up largely in the foster care system as his mother died while he was young. He is heir to the fortune of his mother's estranged family and, in the unlikely event all the other senior Redfellows should perish, he would be a billionaire. A chance encounter with his status obsessed childhood crush Julia (Margaret Qualley) and an unjust demotion at work give him the notion to speed up his inheritance a little. As he arranges "accidents" for his fellow R...

Stars and Their Cars

Crime 101 is named for the California freeway one of the characters commits all his robberies along. It also doubles as describing his MO, he is successful because he makes sure he gets the fundamentals right every time. It can also describe the film itself, which nails the basics of making a slick crime thriller better than just about any other movie has in quite some time. The professional thief is Mike Davis (Chris Hemsworth), a meticulous planner whose jobs never lead to anyone being hurt and are so well executed that nobody even has any idea they are all the work of one man. Nobody that is, except for Mark Ruffalo's Detective Lou Lubesnick, who is determined to catch the "101 Robber" even though his obsession is starting to lead to him being ostracised in the precinct. Both characters come into contact with high value insurance broker Sharon (Halle Berry) as Mike plans a big score and Lou joins the dots in an attempt to track him down. A potential fly in the ointmen...

You Screen, I Scream

The worst thing about Scream 7 isn't actually the film itself. It's the at best cowardly, actions of production company Spyglass Media who fired the star of the previous two films, Melissa Barrera, for daring to have an opinion on genocide. In addition to leaving an icky taste in the mouth, this move cost them fellow star Jenna Ortega and the guy who was supposed to direct the seventh instalment Christopher Landon, resulting in a return to the drawing board to completely rework the film. The only actually good thing about Scream 7 is also nothing to do with the actual film. Series mainstay Neve Campbell missed the previous instalment after producers lowballed her, but the production chaos of their own making means they've had to go crawling back. So Neve returns with a reported $7 million payday, a producer credit and a story based solely around how legendary her character Sydney is. Go her. The actual film doesn't warrant much discussion at all, given it does little mo...

There Can Only be One

Trailers for Him had Jordan Peele's name slapped all over them, which is understandable from a marketing point of view. In reality it is simply produced by the"Get Out" directors company, Monkeypaw Productions. It is actually directed by Justin Tipping, from a script he co-wrote with Skip Bronkie and Zak Akers. The prevalence of Peele's name in the advertising means the film is bound to draw unflattering comparisons with his own work, which is a shame as the film has its own merits. Cameron "Cam" Cade (Tyriq Withers) grew up idolising Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans), star quarterback of the San Antonio Saviours. When White suffers a grisly injury during the Super Bowl, Cade's father tells the young fan that real men like his idol make sacrifices for greatness. Fast forward about a decade and a half and Cam is about to be drafted to the NFL, where he is tipped as a potential challenger to White's "Greatest Of All Time" status. When a mascot in ...

Fifty Shades of Chrononberg

If you've been missing pure David Chrononberg then Crimes of the Future has you covered. It has the lot; body mutilation, main character undergoing a metamorphosis, questions about what defines being human, integrity of the mind, the collision of different world views and pretty much every other recurring theme of his is present and correct. So needless to say, it isn't for everyone. The film takes place in the (possibly near) future, when most humans have evolved to no longer feel pain and in some cases grow mysterious new organs. Viggo Maortensen and Lea Seydoux play a pair of performance artists whose act revolves around removing Mortensen's excess organs in front of a live crowd. Fittingly, given its focus on artits, the film takes place in the orbit of the protagonists with little shown of the world at large. Everything is dingy and grimey, hinting things aren't going swimmingly, and there are vaugue hints at ecological disaster but the characters are all far mor...

Blow My Whistle

Whistle is Corin Hardy's third movie, after his 2015 breakout The Hallow and 2018's Conjuring spin-off The Nun. This new horror flick sits halfway between the indie energy of his maiden effort and the box ticking boredom of his big studio follow-up, with self seriousness butting up against dumb fun. The set-up is most reminiscent of Final Destination, with added high school slasher vibes. Chrys (Dafne Keen) moves in with her cousin Rel's (Sky Yang) family following the death of her father. Within about ten minutes of attending her high school she becomes besotted with Sophie Nellisse's Ellie, ends up in detention after a confrontation with loudmouth basketball player Dean (Jhaleil Swaby) and finds an Aztec death whistle in her new locker. Naturally, the teens end up blowing the death whistle which causes them all to be stalked by their future deaths. This manifests as a ghostly apparition of your dead future self who causes you to suffer said death as soon as they to...

Fast 10 Your Seat Belts

Despite suffering from some well established franchise problems Fast X puts it's pedal to the metal to become one of the saga's best entries. No mean feat for a series 10 films and over 20 years in. The set pieces are a tiny bit more grounded than F9 but still ridiculous and a lot more fun. Various members of the crew play live action Rocket League in Rome, drop out of a plane in a "canoe" and engage in a final chase that is much more satisfying than the turn magnet on and off showdown of the previous film. The film also benifits from an increase in star power and better use of its characters. John Cena returns but he plays the character of Jacob Toretto completely differently and is great fun as he embarks on a road trip with his nephew. Jason Statham is back as Decard Shaw, albeit only as a cameo with the promise of more to come. The film really belongs to franchise newcomer Jason Mamoa as Dante Reyes, son of Fast 5 villain Hernan. Leaving his imposing frame to por...

No Plane No Gain

In many ways Plane is the most generic action movie you could imagine. A former military man who is now a civilian pilot (played, of course, by Gerard Butler) crashes on a rebel malitia held island and must rescue his passangers from the local warlord. Some aspects are a somewhat different to the norm however, making the film a little different, if not necessarily better, than the premise suggests. Firstly, the focus really is on the plane and the ability of Captain Broddie Torrance (classic name for a Butler character) to fly it. This gives the proceedings a disaster movie feel for larges stretches. The titular plane is very much of the plot driving (or flying) variety, able to withstand hails of bullets while being the only airliner not capable of shrugging off a lightning strike. Butler's Captain Torrence is a little different than you might be expecting also. He isn't an ass kicking kill machine but rather just a very good pilot with a "no man left behind" atti...

Summer of Discontent

Unlike say, Final Destination, I Know What You Did Last Summer is not an idea ripe for remakes and sequels. Once you've told the story of a group of people leaving someone for dead, only to be hunted down a year later in grizzly revenge, there isn't really anywhere else to go while sticking close enough to the formulae to warrant being a successor. Its not a major surprise then that this sequel to the 1997 movie of the same name does little more than tread most of the same water as its precursor while trying to reference and acknowledge the original at every opportunity. This time round, the central cast are a little older than the high school graduates of 97 but still act like teenagers. Some of the clunkiest exposition dialogue of recent memory attempts to fill out their back stories but you're left with a group of characters you can't wait to watch die. This would be fine if it wasn't for the fact that, for most of the runtime, the inept hook wielding killer ...

Dan Says its Alright

Search This Blog