The Roses

Welcome to the year of the romcom! Much has been made of the genre’s disappearance from the theatrical experience. True, they still flood streaming services, with Netflix distributing the best of recent years in Richard Linklater’s Hit Man. But with the exception of Anyone But You, few have made any noise either at the box office or broader culture in the decade so far, no matter the talent involved. So when Materialists opened to lots of discussion online and healthy receipts early in the summer, it was a bit of a surprise, despite the pedigree of its director. Of course, that movie settled somewhere between a proper romcom and a deconstruction, intellectualizing a genre that has historically reveled in a simplistic structure focused on watching two beautiful people bicker into love. So The Roses coming at the end of the summer is a perfect mirror image; while also an anti-romcom of sorts, leaning hard into its darkly comedic premise, it’s perfectly comfortable with what it is.

That isn’t to say that writer Tony McNamara’s screenplay is vapid. Its primary focus is to entertain you, as demonstrated by the large ensemble cast and bombastic climactic set piece, a rarity for a modern romcom. While the conceit inherently lends itself to an exploration of the difficulties of sustaining a marriage over the long term, it doesn’t take much to notice all he’s injecting about masculinity and gender roles and child rearing and power struggles. Some of that is eventually spelled out, but much is left in the background, allowing you to engage with it as you see fit. In this way, McNamara makes an effective argument for this film’s existence: despite being sharing a source novel with the 1989 blockbuster The War of the Roses, the films share little more than the central idea, situating The Roses as a complete reimagining and wholly his own.

Read the full review on Pop Culture Maniacs.