Searchlight Pictures’ The Roses is a reimagining of 1989’s
The War of the Roses, based on the novel by Warren Adler. The new film stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman as two professionals — Theo an architect and Ivy a chef — whose careers are heading in opposite directions, creating a storm behind the façade of what seems to be a perfect life. Jay Roach directed the project, which also stars Andy Samberg, Allison Janney, Belinda Bromilow, Ncuti Gatwa, Sunita Mani, Zoë Chao, Jamie Demetriou and Kate McKinnon.
The film is set in Northern California, but was, in fact, shot in the UK over the course of 40 days, and marked the first time Roach had partnered with Academy-Award-nominated director of photography, Florian Hoffmeister (Tár).
“He’s so interested in getting it right in every way,” says Roach of the DP. “He was very committed to the idea that we had to give the actors a chance to play around…and that takes time and it eats up his ability to make the lighting just right or the camera moves perfect. He always found the right way to dial it in and make it feel very cinematic and very well-designed from a cinematic standpoint, but still enable these great performances to find themselves.”
Editor John Poll is someone Roach has worked with many times in the past, including on 2019’s Bombshell, 2004’s
Meet the Fockers and 2000’s
Meet the Parents.
“He was in LA,” says Roach of the editor. “We filmed in London and South Devon to recreate Northern California. He was cutting right (along) with me and, because of the time difference, I would check in with him and we would watch cuts together. It’s easier to do now with remote viewing technology — to actually see quite a high-res representation of what it is, and talk specifically about cuts. He can even recut something right while I’m online. It’s all evolved so beautifully...Then, [after production wrapped], we moved into the same space in Santa Monica, and I’ve been editing away ever since.”
Roach credits Oscar-nominated writer Tony McNamara (Poor Things) with influencing the edit though a well-crafted script. The banter between Theo and Ivy is both harsh and loving, and it was important for the audience to get a sense of the couple’s intense dynamic.
“We were always tweaking,” says Roach of the edit. “I love screening a film and seeing how audiences connect…I hope they walk out thinking, ‘Oh wow! I would like to work a little harder on my relationship. Maybe I could be a little nicer to my partner?’”
The film has a number of invisible visual effects, and Roach points to long-time collaborator Dave Johnson with helping to solve both expected and unexpected challenges.
“Dave Johnson is my visual effects supervisor, and he’s the only crew member that I’ve never done a film without,” says Roach, pointing to past highlights that include the Dr. Evil-shaped island and submarine in Austin Powers.
In the case of The Roses, the setting needed to look like Mendocino, CA, even though the shoot took place far away.
“(There were) more than you might realize,” says Roach of the film’s VFX. “We built the interior of our big house on a stage at Pinewood, and the exterior is all a visual effects concoction.”
The house’s deck, with its scenic view, was a blue-screen shoot, and the maritime museum that serves as a focal point of Theo’s architectural career, is completely CG. There’s also a marine mammal that appears later in the film — a visual effect as well.
“He thinks like a director,” says Roach of Johnson. “That’s what I love about working with Dave. He’s a storyteller. He’s got a lot to pull off — technologically and design-wise — but he’s always there to just make it a better story.”
As much as he prepared for the project and relied on past knowledge from his film credits, Roach says there are always variables that can’t be accounted for. In the case of The Roses, it was shooting in England and dodging changes in weather that left him with less time to shoot than anticipated.
“You might think you have a day, and you get a quarter of a day to shoot something, so you have to invent a new way through it,” he shares. “I always feel so unprepared, and yet I prepare like a mad person. I’m just obsessively preparing. But there’s just so many wild cards. Thank god I was raised in the film world, in comedy, with Mike Myers, because chaos is part of the deal…If you keep in mind what really matters scene-to-scene — what the beginning, middle and end are, where the key transition points, or what are going to be the lines that just get repeated over and over, and you make sure you don’t leave that day without those, the rest of the chaos actually improves the movie, because it seems less [staged] and less scripted.”