THE CAST – Olivia Colman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Zoë Chao, Jamie Demetriou, Ncuti Gatwa, Kate McKinnon, Andy Samberg & Allison Janney

THE TEAM – Jay Roach (Director) & Tony McNamara (Writer)

THE RUNNING TIME – 105 Minutes

We’re constantly told to “stop and smell the roses.” Whenever life gets tough, we’re told to take a moment to look around and appreciate the beauty around us. It’s seemingly how Theo and Ivy Rose make their marriage work. Whenever the high-strung architect Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch) and the easygoing chef Ivy (Olivia Colman) disagree, one of them pauses, takes it all in, realizes how silly all their fighting is, and admits they’re being an ass. If the secret to a happy marriage truly is never going to bed angry, then the Roses are proof positive.

The two met in their native England when they were young professionals eager to strike out on their own and unleash their big ideas. Ivy has already decided that she’s moving to America, and Theo proposes that he go with her even though, as she points out, they haven’t even had sex yet. One quick trip to the walk-in fridge fixes that, though, and soon enough they’re living the American dream in the Bay Area: A house, two kids, a thriving business for Theo, and years of putting other moms to shame at school bake sales for Ivy. When a massive storm reverses their professional fortunes overnight, Ivy starts spending more time building a restaurant empire, and Theo takes over raising their kids. While they make it work at first, resentment between the two starts to brew, eventually boiling over to the point that divorce seems inevitable. Will Ivy and Theo burn it all down, or will they find a way back into each other’s arms?

Tony McNamara’s marvelous adaptation of Warren Adler’s 1981 novel “The War of the Roses” (and Danny DeVito’s 1988 film adaptation) retains all the bitter nastiness of the original text while seamlessly bringing it into the 2020s. Divorce hasn’t changed much in the four decades since the novel’s original publication; if anything, people have only gotten more selfish and vicious in the intervening years, despite all the “conscious uncoupling” and increasing availability of relationship counseling. The culture at large has become increasingly nasty in recent years, making it easier for McNamara to portray the escalating war between the Roses as less over-the-top than it was in the ’80s. Then again, maybe that’s just the posh British accents fooling us Americans into thinking the trashy is actually classy.

Under the direction of Jay Roach, “The Roses” is as broad as entertainment gets – the punchlines are big, the pratfalls are bigger, and every single adult cast member is trying to outdo each other on the scenery-chewing front. And yet, with the estimable Colman and Cumberbatch lending their honeyed voices to the dialogue of McNamara’s patented poison pen, “The Roses” mostly finds an agreeable balance between frothy fun and stinging social commentary.

Even with McNamara’s thoughtful plotting and gradual escalation of emotions, the roles of Ivy and Theo require performers who have a complete lack of vanity as well as the ability to go big without becoming a caricature. Colman and Cumberbatch are perfect for the job; as adept with comedy as they are with drama, both performers possess a facility with dialogue that allows them to turn on a dime between different emotional registers, an invaluable skill for navigating the hairpin turns of McNamara’s scrumptious script. Colman, in particular, goes a bit overboard with Ivy’s sweetness, adding so much sugar that some line readings can leave a suspicious aftertaste. Without such insistence on Ivy’s puppy love for Theo, though, her staying with him as long as she does would push disbelief past the breaking point.

Cumberbatch makes Theo as charming as possible, but he embodies Theo’s tightly wound, Type A personality a bit too well, remaining smart enough to recognize his shortcomings but egocentric enough to fall victim to them at every turn. Cumberbatch’s self-loathing as Theo is so palpable that he proves unable to stop himself, making it harder to sympathize with him as the film goes on. That’s part of the film’s design, though, as Ivy likewise falls victim to her own ego in ways that make it difficult to sympathize with her. But the British thespians find nuance in every line, showcasing the deep hurt that causes them to lash out with such vulgar verbal gymnastics. While everything is in the script, it’s really because of Colman and Cumberbatch that it’s so difficult to take sides in this war of the Roses; even the nastiest, most over-the-top things they say and do to each other (the climactic dinner party sequence is fantastically filthy fun) always come from an emotional place that makes sense.

The ensemble surrounding the two Roses could afford to dial themselves back a bit. Still, those characters are one-note by nature, and they’re played as such by performers with big personalities, hired specifically for the energy they bring to every project. If it feels like Zoë Chao, Jamie Demetriou, Kate McKinnon, and Andy Samberg are all playing to the back row, then that’s only because they each have such an easily identifiable screen presence that their performances feel big even when they’re working in a more grounded register. Only Allison Janney manages to rise above, as she seemingly always does, stealing the whole movie in her one scene as Ivy’s no-nonsense pitbull of a divorce attorney. Her line readings are so sharp they could draw blood.

If McNamara’s delicious dialogue is the real star of the show here, then at least Roach stays out of the screenplay’s way, guiding the ensemble with an invisible hand through its tricky tonal shifts. Roach’s bland, shot/reverse shot direction and dislike of subtlety certainly don’t elevate the film. However, embracing the entertainment factor of the script’s nastiness while ensuring the film doesn’t come across as cold is more difficult than Roach makes it look. While one could wish for some more visual flair, it’s hard not to enjoy what Roach gives us, as “The Roses” still offers plenty of bang for your buck with its smart, side-splitting screenplay and magnificent central performances.

The post “THE ROSES” appeared first on Next Best Picture.

Plot Synopsis: Life seems easy for picture-perfect couple Ivy (Olivia Colman) and Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch):successful careers, a loving marriage, great kids. But beneath the façade of their supposed ideal life, a storm is brewing – as Theo’s career nosedives while Ivy’s own ambitions take off, a tinderbox of fierce competition and hidden resentment ignites. The Roses is a reimagining of the 1989 classic film The War of the Roses, based on the novel by Warren Adler.

What do you all think of the trailer? This is certainly lighter in tone than I was expecting and appears to be leaning into McNamara’s dry, absurdist humor in ways I’m excited to see play out. Jay Roach may not be the most exciting director in the world, but he sure knows how to do comedy and get good performances out of his actors. And he’s got two great actors here, Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman, to work with. I was a little curious as to why the film wasn’t released in the fall, but after seeing the trailer’s tone, I’m now a bit more understanding of what direction they’re heading in, and I’m on board. What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below or on our X account.

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The post The Next Best Picture Podcast – “Nightbitch” appeared first on Next Best Picture.

THE CAST – Amy Adams, Scoot McNairy, Arleigh Patrick Snowdon, Emmett James Snowdon, Zoë Chao, Mary Holland, Archana Rajan & Jessica Harper

THE TEAM – Marielle Heller (Director/Writer)

THE RUNNING TIME – 98 Minutes

When Marielle Heller’s adaptation of the Rachel Yoder novel “Nightbitch” was announced, curiosity peaked around how Heller would convey the surreal story of a mom who transforms into a dog. Though, as Heller’s previous films “The Diary of a Teenage Girl,” “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,“ and “Can You Ever Forgive Me?“ can attest, she looks at the world through a nuanced, witty, and imaginative lens. Her sensibilities ground the feral energy “Nightbitch“ draws from motherhood. But, when physical canine transformations come into play, the film teases a mischievous, bizarre tone that doesn’t bite. The humanistic narrative that Heller so deftly excels at and the magic realism she attempts to explore is an awkward blend. As a result, “Nightbitch“ feels like two films in one, though Heller keeps it from going too astray by finding resonant humor, comfort, and patience in female rage. At the heart of this oddity are a woman coming to terms with how motherhood changed her and a compassionate performance by Amy Adams that brings her to life.

The film begins with a stay-at-home mom, Mother (Adams), in the daily routine of raising her toddler, Baby (Arleigh Patrick Snowden and Emmett James Snowden). Her life plays on a well-edited loop between cleaning messes, making meals, and tending to tantrums. She also squeezes in the time to carve out play dates and attend a toddlers’ group at the local library, where she finds the other mothers’ coddling behaviors bothersome. Back home, she usually holds the fort alone, as her husband, Father (Scoot McNairy), often travels for work conferences. When he returns, he slips into the comfortable expectation that even while on daddy duties, his wife will still be “on call“ to help out. In the meantime, it has been increasingly difficult for her to communicate with him about her needs. Mother decided to give up her career as an artist years ago but wished her husband had talked her out of it. Instead, he’d met her with a customary nod and smile, unaware of her true feelings.

The story meets Mother at what feels like peak exhaustion. Her urges to express truthful thoughts on uniform questions like, “Isn’t it great to be at home with your child all day?“ become harder to resist. She is changing, and not just on a psychological level. Random patches of hair grow on her skin. Her teeth become sharper. She has a heightened sense of smell and a taste for raw meat. A popped cyst reveals the early makings of a dog tail. The transformation happens so matter-of-factly, and Mother’s deeply relatable response (“This is what’s happening now”) reveals that Heller is headed someplace familiar with this concept. When life gets ridiculous, sometimes you have to laugh.

The film elicits a few laughs with canine-related details and scenarios, from woofs and growls to digging holes in the front yard. However, the film uses humor most effectively when it’s derived from how fed up Adams’s character is with keeping up appearances emotionally. The drama comes from this same place of reaching a breaking point and needing to reexamine who you are after a life-changing experience. When the expectations and pressures put on being a mother become so unrealistic, who do women become when they don’t feel defined within that idealized identity? What happens when they try to reconnect with who they once were?

When Mother searches for answers in literature, local librarian Norma (Jessica Harper) gives her a book called “A Field Guide to Magical Women.“ The text leads to interesting notes on women whose identities manifest in a mythical state, like the “Bird Women“ who grow feathers in their 60s.

This text is the precise point where the film could have expanded on the fable by going darker and weirder with the dog concept, especially considering that Mother embraces the transformation and seems eager to continue exploring it. Instead, “nightbitch“ becomes more of a reference point for Mother to explain her anger. The magic realism of it all is left alone to exist solely as a visual and metaphoric cue. The transformation elements strike a thematic chord as women’s bodies experience many unforeseen changes during pregnancy. But the concept itself goes under-explored; its bizarre tone and energy fail to blend into the insightful, grounded story that Heller is already telling.

The film works best when it focuses on Mother’s breakdown of self, when she gravitates towards the artist inside her and reexamines her identity within motherhood. Some of the most impactful moments involve intimate conversations between Mother and Father that reveal the depths of her internal conflict. A tremendous argument scene in the final act unearths Mother’s deepest and darkest emotions, which she’d buried for a long time. The artist in her, the woman her husband married, “died in childbirth.“ The scene speaks to Heller’s genius as a director and lets Adams and McNairy reach incredible heights in their work. Adams, in particular, is a tremendous gift to this film. Her performance is an endearing love letter to the bumpy journey of finding yourself again after a life-changing experience. With terrific comedic timing and ferocious energy, she deftly conveys the character’s passivity and creativity. She also encompasses all the poignant themes at play; this manifests into an especially emotional dinner scene when Mother reunites with her friends from the art world.

Looking at motherhood through an animal frame is an intriguing perspective for Heller to sink her teeth into. She finds a sweet spot between embracing mothers as superheroes who can do everything and mothers who feel they can’t do it all. Mother is both all at once and so much more. While Heller struggles to balance the visual concept with its philosophical themes, her compassionate sensibilities bring “Nightbitch“ home.

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THE CAST – Reese Witherspoon, Ashton Kutcher, Jesse Williams, Steve Zahn, Tig Notaro, Zoë Chao, Griffin Matthews, Wesley Kimmel, Rachel Bloom, Vella Lovell & Shiri Appleby

THE TEAM – Aline Brosh McKenna (Director/Writer)
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THE RUNNING TIME – 109 Minutes

Just when we thought the beloved rom-com genre from the ’80s and ’90s was lost forever, Hollywood is finally bringing back breezy, cute, and charming films about love. Films like “Bros” and “Fire Island” of last year made history with their LGBTQ+ casts and creative teams. Even the stars of some of our most revered films found their way back to these stories, like Julia Roberts and George Clooney in 2022’s “Ticket to Paradise.”

Of course, not every recent rom-com is that great – plenty are tacky and not that creative, and there were certainly many like that back in the day – but we can look past the flaws because we’ve missed this genre so much. People love love and especially love watching people fall in love, even if they’ve seen a similar story play out hundreds of times before.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Netflix’s “Your Place or Mine,” starring Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher, joins the growing collection of films. The movie, written and directed by Aline Brosh McKenna (known for her romantic musical comedy series “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”), doesn’t present us with anything new – it hones in on the best-friends-to-lovers trope – nor does it have the most convincing chemistry between its lead stars. Still, it’s filled with plenty of laughs from charming supporting actors and an engaging story that will capture anyone’s attention.

It starts off in 2003 when Debbie (Witherspoon) and Peter (Kutcher), having just met, are in the middle of a hot and heavy hookup. The movie takes a little time to poke fun at the early 2000s – pointing out all the useless shirts and earrings we used to wear and terrible flat-ironed hairstyles we all had – before jumping to the present. After that one-night stand, Debbie and Peter remained best friends, despite living in different cities. Debbie, an aspiring accountant, lives in Los Angeles with her son, Jack (Wesley Kimmel), while Peter, a brand consultant, lives the bachelor lifestyle in New York City. They’ve made a cute friendship for themselves over the years, FaceTiming and chatting several times daily and knowing what seems like every detail about themselves.

Debbie is planning a visit to the Big Apple so she can complete a certificate to kick-start her career. Still, when plans change at the last minute with her babysitter (played by the always hilarious Rachel Bloom), she’s ready to put the trip on hold until Peter decides to come out to Los Angeles and watch Jack while she hangs out in his apartment in New York.

The “trading places” experience gives both of them an interesting insight into the other’s life. With sticky notes put on everything and laminated guides explaining all of Jack’s allergies, Peter realizes the insane amount of control and helicopter parenting Debbie exudes in her and Jack’s lives. Without her around, the two decide to push the envelope by getting Jack out of his shell and trying new things, like hockey and making friends. In the process, a sweet bond forms between the two, especially because Jack’s father is largely out of the picture. Debbie, on the other hand, also gets to see the somewhat empty life Peter lives, with a gorgeous apartment that lacks his personality and a multitude of meaningless relationships discovered when his ex-girlfriend, Minka (Zoë Chao), shows up at his apartment one night much to Debbie’s surprise. The two women link up in the city to make the trip even more memorable for Debbie, who eventually meets Theo Martin (Jesse Williams), a top editor at the renowned Duncan Press literary agency. After Debbie finds a manuscript of Peter’s secret book, her ties with Theo become even more important, and sparks also fly between the two.

Brosh McKenna, who pulled out all the stops with “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” from its humor to wild musical moments, is quite tame with “Your Place Or Mine.” She doesn’t turn the genre on its head, deciding to stick to a more conventional approach with all that the lead characters do. Nor does she really develop any of the characters – Debbie and Peter seem the most cookie-cutter. The comedy itself doesn’t seem that impressive, but it’s elevated by a wild bunch of supporting cast members. Tig Notaro is great as Alicia, Debbie, and Peter’s friend, who, no matter what time of day, is guzzling a large coffee and has a wonderfully dry sense of humor. Steve Zahn is also hilarious as Zen, the cheerful hippie/surfer dude who spends his days tending to Debbie’s garden and hoping she’ll notice him. Bloom (who starred in “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”) makes her mark in just a handful of scenes as an aspiring actress, as does Vella Lovell, another series alumna, whose deadpan delivery never gets old.

You can’t have a rom-com without some romance, and there’s plenty of it going around in this film. Debbie and Theo’s flame is easy to spot, especially when two gorgeous actors portray these characters. Their chemistry works well together as they both play incredibly smart and well-read people. But as seen in “My Best Friend’s Wedding” and “When Harry Met Sally,” two best friends will eventually realize their feelings for each other, which also happens here. Unfortunately, Witherspoon and Kutcher seem like better friends in this movie than lovers. There’s nothing that electric between the two of them, unlike what we see between her and Williams on screen, so it ends up being hard to believe that they will get together in the end. They also don’t spend any time together on screen, except in the final few minutes (and yes, it’s an airport scene), so we can’t even see their in-person evolution as we can in most other movies.

But at the end of the day, most people will be able to look past the flaws of “Your Place Or Mine.” With a star-studded cast, big laughs, and a cute but corny love story, there’s no doubt people will flock to the film on Netflix. And hopefully, it’ll show the streamer, and many other studios out there, that rom-coms are in, and more of them should keep coming our way.

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