The Roses (2025)

Director: Jay Roach

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Colman, Andy Samberg, Allison Janney

Have I Seen it Before: You go into this feeling like you probably have, as long as you’ve seen War of the Roses (1989)…

Did I Like It: But that’s not quite right. It’s a precarious position to criticize a film by comparing it to another film, but it’s hard not to touch on that here. The heart of DeVito’s film is pitch black, with the doomed lovers committed to hating one another straight through to their final breaths. This is a broad Hollywood comedy, coming from one of the chief purveyors of broad, Hollywood comedies. Cumberbatch and Colman are sufficiently biting at their height, but the ending—even in its bleakness—is entirely too soft. The original works so well because Douglas and Turner seem to hate each other, even when they’re in love, whereas Cumberbatch and Coleman seem to love each other, even when they’re trying to kill one another. There should be no happy ending in the tale of the Roses, merely a sense that we can try to be a bit happier in their stead.

The films problems don’t end there, either. I laugh occasionally, but the cast is so stacked I’m left wanting more from the supporting characters. Ncuti Gatwa’s all-too-brief tenure as the Doctor let us all know he has the charisma that he should be leading his own movies, not playing the fifth Ken. Andy Samberg and Kate McKinnon play Andy Samberg and Kate McKinnon, earning their paychecks. The real missed opportunity here is Allison Janney. One would think that getting featured on the poster and generally being a national treasure would warrant more than a single scene which taxes none of the comedic minds at work here. This movie sold me the idea that she would be playing the Danny DeVito role. It was far less than that, and that’s a real shame.

A good adaptation makes one want to seek out the source material. Why does a lackluster remake also make one want to do the same thing?

Wicked Little Letters (2023)

Director: Thea Sharrock

Cast: Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Anjana Vasan, Joanna Scanlan

Have I Seen it Before: Nope.

Did I Like It: Sad to say that I probably liked the trailer a fair bit better than the actual film itself. I’m in a weird period of my life right now where I have the opportunity to see the trailer for pretty much every independent film about two or three times. This one seemed jumped out at me those handful of times as the right mix of quaint British countryside humor and palpable tension that is the stuff of the most entertaining films. It looked like this could be this year’s answer to Fargo (1996).

And all of the elements are there. The mystery of just who is writing the scandalous letters is dispensed with fairly quickly, but the question as to whether or not the likable Rose Gooding (Buckley) will be found innocent, or if justice will come around to the fundamentally hateful (but still ultimately human) Edith Swan (Colman) is fueled with just enough uncertainty that the film goes down easy enough. It helps that the film is based on a true story (more so than Fargo can actually ever claim to be) that isn’t well known. The film is peopled with the right number of eccentrics, anything less would have been something criminal for a light British entertainment.

So then why am I not more effusive about the film? The simplest explanation is probably that there is just nothing new here, and the film is content with being a slight entertainment and nothing more. The thing that gnaws at the back of my mind is that sometimes a film may be built with all of the right elements and all of the right intentions, but for reasons beyond our understand the film doesn’t quite come together.