Amid crabs, napkin drawings and a star-studded comedic cast, “The Roses,” the new dark comedy film from director Jay Roach and writer Tony McNamara, begs the question: Can the modern couple really have it all?
“Two artists? It’s just incredibly difficult,” Allison Janney told Variety on Tuesday evening, reflecting on the film’s premise at the New York premiere.
Based on Warren Adler’s comedic anti-romance novel, “The War of the Roses,” the Searchlight Pictures movie follows Ivy (Benedict Cumberbatch) as they navigate marriage, raising twins, and balancing their careers as chef and architect, respectively. But, just when Ivy’s crab shack begins to boom with buzz and success, Theo’s latest architectural venture comes crashing down.
Related Stories
“The foundation of your relationship has to be pretty strong to weather these things,” added Janney, who plays an intimidatingly deadpan divorce lawyer in the film. “And I think [what happens in this movie] would be the hardest thing to weather for anyone.” About her personal connection to the material, she quipped: “I haven’t had a romantic partner for so fucking long. My thing is my constant want to please someone, like, ‘Well, what do you want to do?’ I think people-pleaser is my most annoying trait.”AK
Popular on Variety
Where there is strife on screen, everything came up much rosier on the red carpet, where the step-and-repeat at The Hudson Theater was lined with vibrant red bulbs. Cumberbatch and Colman joined Janney for the special event, as did Andy Samberg, Kate McKinnon, Sunita Mani and Zoë Chao, who are among the standouts in the starry ensemble cast.
Cumberbatch, who is best known for his roles in period dramas like “Sherlock” and “Atonement,” as well as for playing Doctor Strange in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, admitted that the dark comedy is a different look for him. In fact, he considers the role a step towards something “new.”
“I try to sort of scare myself a little bit with the new,” Cumberbatch explained. “And this comedy has been in the works for a while, as has working with one of my best friends, so both of those things are good and new and fresh.”
Cumberbatch — who also produced the film, which opens in theaters on Aug. 29 — relished matching wits with Colman as the hatefully loving Roses.
“I don’t know that he’s very much like anyone I’ve played before,” Cumberbatch added. “He’s sort of very emotionally intuitive, he’s impulsive, he’s very pragmatic, he’s capable of a great depth of love and hurt and pain and hatred. He’s a good dresser, and he’s quite well groomed.”
Initially, McNamara had reservations about tackling a remake of Danny DeVito’s 1989 film “The War of the Roses,” which starred Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner (who attended “The Roses” premiere event) as the couple battling through a divorce.
“When they brought it to me, I thought, ‘I don’t want to make a remake because it’s also a perfect film. Why would you bother?’” said McNamara. “But then I talked to Olivia and Ben, and I had this idea that we could make a show that’s more about marriage and that’s so verbally brilliant.”
Indeed, the story’s premise is evergreen, Roach points out, sharing that he brought his personal insights into romantic relationships to the project.
“I’m such a hypocrite. I’ll get into a fight over something that my wife has done, that my wife very rightly points out, ‘You know you were just doing that exact same thing,” Roach said. “That goes on, too, in our film. They’re both accusing each other of getting lost in their egos and in their careers. They’re both guilty, but they’re doing the best that they can.”
