Ben O'Shea: The Dynamic Between These Two Is So Hilarious

Ben O’Shea dropped in to chat about the new British comedy The Roses, a modern remake of War of the Roses. Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman lead the cast, and their on-screen dynamic is hilarious, bringing a sharp, dry wit to the famously chaotic story of a marriage unraveling. The supporting cast doesn’t quite match the leads’ energy, but the film is still carried by its two stars. Look out for an amazing cameo from Allison Janney, who steals her scene with signature style.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Great perflick with Ben out of Shame. Good morning Ben,
Good morning guys. I've got a comedy to bring to
you today. Ye good. We need All the Roses now.
It's a remake of the War of the Roses, which
listeners of a certain age will have fond memories of
this film it came out. I do a certain all

(00:22):
of this is where all this, where all of this
come on? Like twenty five year olds don't have a
clue what I'm talking about. I mean, I wasn't around
when Beethoven was around, But I don't know who it is.
I think we're of a different generation. Lease. I think
I don't know if the current generation go back like
they look at the nineties as if it was the
sixties vs. So so. Back in nineteen eighty nine, the

(00:43):
War of the Roses came out. It had Michael Douglas,
Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner at the height of their powers. Yeah,
I loved that movie. I saw it at previous I
didn't knew nothing about it. So funny, I knew nothing
about it and I came out of it. I just
loved it. So it's such a classic film direct by
Daddy DeVito, who was also in the film, and the
three of them had just come from doing Romancing the

(01:05):
Stars Jewel of the Nile. This is sort of the
third collaboration, and they were just on song. It told
a story of this this this couple who fall in
love head over heels, get married. They seem to have
the idyllic life, but over time cracks start to appear,
little resentment start to fester, and then it just spirals

(01:25):
into the you know, into the most crazy kind of culmination. Uh.
And it's sort of a satire in relationships and all
this kind of stuff. So you'd think a classic like
that is going to be pretty tough to remake. But
if you're going to do it, you got who you're
going to cast. Olivia Coleman and Benedict Cumberbatch, two of

(01:46):
Britain's great actors, two of the great actors of their generation.
Olivia Coleman's got an Academy Award, Benedict Cumberbatch he's got
two Oscar nominations. And so despite being best mates in
real life, they've actually never been on screen. Toget. This
is the first time ever we've seen them in a movie,
and they play Benedict Coma bat To plays Theo, a
brilliant architect who bumps into Ivy played by Olivia Coleman,

(02:09):
who's a brilliant chef. He goes into her restaurant one day.
They hit it off immediately fall head over heels, just
like in the original Move to America where they start
this beautiful life together. But because they're such incredible professionals
in their own field, there's this kind of constant tug
of war over okay, whose career is going to be
the dominant one. Initially it's Theo, the architect, because he's

(02:33):
got commission to build this kind of like dream project,
this museum, maritime museum. But when disaster strikes, he kind
of is forced to take a step back and let
Ivy take over as the bread winner of the household,
and she starts a restaurant which becomes very successful. And
so the resentments start to build, as you know, one
enjoys career success, the other one falls on hard times.

(02:55):
Because they're both very proud people, it doesn't sit so well.
The film is sort of like in the first film,
where Danny DeVito is the divorce lawyer, tells the whole
film in sort of a flashback form. This is a
bit similar. It starts off in couples therapy, where you've
got Benedict and Olivia on the couple's therapy couch and
the therapist that classic thing, just name one thing you

(03:18):
appreciate about, appreciate about the other person, and Benedict's sort
of deadpans well, I'd rather live with her than a wolf.
And then Olivia Coleman goes he has arms, and then
and then it starts. It starts to unfold a little
bit from there and he says her head is rather
pleasing when seen from a distance, and then she and

(03:40):
then she looks at him and says he smells like
an anchovy that's had a night out on the booze. Uh.
And then there's then there's a sea bomb that's thrown
in there, and away they go. The dynamic between these
two is so hilarious. The film has been written by
the Australian playwright Tony McNamara, who wrote Poor Things, He
the Favorite. He created the Great Great TV series with

(04:03):
Nicholas Holten Elf Fanning, so he's a two time Oscar nominee.
And it's directed by Jay Roach, the guy who directed
the Austin Powers franchise and Meet the Parents franchise. There's
a lot of you know, really really talented people involved
in the filmy. So how many marriage counseling sessions out
of five do you give this one? Well, I'm giving
it four, although these two need a lot more than
four to figure out what's going on. So yeah, four,

(04:26):
this is This is a great one. So it's a
lover of the original, I won't be disappointed. It's so
different Danny character, I will say, is the supporting cast
really is not that fantastic. Like, there's Andy Samberger is
in it, Kate McKinnon is in it, Nikooti Gatwar the
new doctor who is in it. There's an amazing cameo

(04:47):
from Alison Janny in it, who she can't do anything,
she is so good at this. So she's she's the
Danny DeVito lawyer. So they say, yeah, so she's the Okay,
So it's worth a luck. It's worth the price of admission,
as they say,