War of the Words

Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch on playing a couple who trade vicious barbs at the end of their marriage in the darkly comic film The Roses

- by H. ALAN SCOTT

IN TREATMENT Ivy (Colman) and Theo (Cumberbatch) in counseling. McNamara wanted to make a movie about "two people trying to stay together who don't have the skill set."

“WE HAD WANTED TO WORK TOGETHER FOR A long time,” Benedict Cumberbatch tells Newsweek, reflecting on the project that finally united him with Olivia Colman. To seal the deal, it took adding powerhouses like writer Tony McNamara (The Favourite, Poor Things) and director Jay Roach (Bombshell) to create The Roses (August 29). The new film adaptation of Warren Adler's 1981 novel The War of the Roses was also made into a hit 1989 movie starring Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito.

“It takes nothing away from the original film,” Colman says. “Ours is with a sort of respectful nod to it and has taken it in a slightly different direction.”

The new film follows Ivy (Colman) and Theo (Cumberbatch), a witty British couple whose marriage is so rooted in sharp-edged banter that they can no longer turn it off and it almost becomes their personalities. After relocating to America, their professional lives pivot—his fails while hers skyrockets—igniting a domestic war to end all domestic wars. Their once humorous jabs morph into devastating weapons used at an epic dinner party and far beyond, and their dream home becomes the battle arena where their marriage may be the biggest casualty.

“At first, I said, ‘I’m not doing a remake,’” admits writer McNamara. “What I do want to write is a movie about marriage [instead]. Two people trying to stay together who don’t have the skill set.”

Director Roach had a similar reaction, captivated by the emotional core of the story. “The comedy and the drama and the pain and the joy are not separate. They’re all overlaid all the time,” Roach says. “In Tony’s script, the hope is kept alive till the very last second of the film.”