Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Colman relive fruit fight in ‘The Roses’
Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman relive the chaotic fruit fight from “The Roses” and the cooker damage that made it unforgettable.
Spoiler alert: This story contains details from “The Roses.” If you’d feel thorny about having bits shared with you before you see the movie, plant yourself in a theater and then come back.
Kathleen Turner had a prediction for a new adaptation of Warren Adler’s novel “The War of the Roses.” In contrast to her original 1989 film, the embattled couple would survive.
Was she right or wrong?
If you’ve seen “The Roses,” you might be wondering what happens after the final scene. Is there a chance the recently reunited Ivy (Olivia Colman) and Theo Rose (Benedict Cumberbatch) escape death, or do they succumb to a fire?
As in the first film, in which Turner costarred with Michael Douglas, they’re an estranged couple who begin annihilating each other, dead set on ownership of their home. Ivy, a successful restauranteur, paid for it. Theo, an architect, meticulously designed the stunning house, and he wants to keep it − so badly, in fact, that he’s willing to poison Ivy with raspberries, to which she’s deathly allergic.
Kicking off the film’s climax, Theo offers Ivy a bit of Black Forest cake, in which he has hidden the fatal raspberries. When Ivy begins experiencing anaphylaxis, Theo slides papers in her direction that would give him ownership of the property. Ivy signs, and he stabs her with a dose of epinephrine before realizing she has scribbled Zendaya’s signature.
Theo says he wouldn’t have let Ivy die, but she’s unconvinced and retrieves a gun. She tells Theo to leave or she’ll shoot, and she alarms him by firing. Unarmed, he tosses oranges her way, and the fighting continues. He hurls a knife at Ivy and starts beating the top of a stove once owned by Julia Child with its grate. The battle continues until Theo admits he never stopped loving Ivy, which softens her gun-toting heart.
“Why leave me, then?” she asks.
“Because you hated me, and I couldn’t bear it,” he replies.
“The truth is, I doubt I could live without you, anyway,” he confesses.
“And I, you,” she says.
“So, murder-suicide pact then?” he teases, which gets Ivy to drop her gun. The two embrace in their bedroom and apologize. And you might think they’ll get a happy ending until gas begins leaking from the battered stove, snaking its way to their room.
“Death do us part” they vow, and they kiss. Then Theo directs their digital home assistant to play their song and put on a fire before the screen goes white.
Cumberbatch says Ivy and Theo were able to come together because “underneath it all, the hate is from how much they desperately love each other, and that’s the real tragedy that seems to be going on.”
Vulnerability, he says, is the couple’s superpower. “I think that’s something I could (use) more of − that ability to just be so open and honest, at the moment.”
The costars are coy about the finality of their deaths but are willing to indulge the hope that the Roses smell the gas and escape.
“They live happily ever after,” Cumberbatch says with a laugh.
“They smell it,” Colman says, playing along. “They all get out.”
Director Jay Roach (“Meet the Parents,” “Bombshell”) also demurs when asked about the Roses’ fate.
“I want the audience to feel like: ‘Wow, they could have figured this out. It just was a hair late, and they seemed so connected right till the very end,’” Roach says. “So I don’t mind a little ambiguity in that situation.”
Cumberbatch is more forthcoming about his hope that the movie reminds people to appreciate their significant others. He hopes they’ll “Look at each other at the end and go, ‘I love you.’ ‘I love you, too.’”
