For decades, Ivy and Theo Rose (Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch) have been the envy of their world—the picture-perfect power couple whose glittering dinner parties, successful careers, and effortless charm mask a fragile ecosystem of resentment and quiet desperation. Their carefully curated world shatters when Theo, a celebrated architect, is publicly disgraced after his flagship bridge design fails, bankrupting them and exposing the hollow core of their marriage. Director Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Little Miss Sunshine, Battle of the Sexes) craft a devastatingly funny and painful tragicomedy about the lies we tell to keep up appearances.

As creditors circle and their social standing evaporates, the Roses’ home becomes a warzone of passive-aggressive sabotage and long-buried betrayals. Ivy’s genteel façade cracks to reveal a steelier, more calculating survivor, while Theo’s artistic temperament curdles into pathetic self-pity. With their teenage daughter Hattie caught in the crossfire, the couple is forced to confront the uncomfortable truth: they never really liked each other, and the collapse might be the most honest thing that’s ever happened to them.

The Roses entire cast

1. Olivia Colman as Ivy Rose

Ivy is the impeccable socialite whose entire identity is her tasteful home and influential social calendar. Colman masterfully peels back Ivy’s gracious hostess mask to reveal a woman of immense, coiled fury and razor-sharp wit. Her most chilling moments are her quietest—rearranging flowers while calmly detailing the exact terms of their financial ruin, or using a perfectly phrased compliment to eviscerate Theo’s masculinity. Her arc is a descent from grace into glorious, unhinged survivalism.

Colman finds both the tragedy and the dark comedy in Ivy’s unraveling. The actress based Ivy’s specific, clipped accent on a blend of upper-class English and East Coast American pretension, creating a uniquely alienating effect. Her final stand—auctioning off her prized possessions with the theatricality of a Shakespearean soliloquy—is an instant classic scene.

2. Benedict Cumberbatch as Theo Rose

Theo is the self-styled “artistic genius” whose ego is as grandiose as his failed architectural designs. Cumberbatch captures his rapid devolution from smug patriarch to a petulant man-child hiding in his greenhouse, nursing expensive scotch and delusions of a comeback. His vulnerability is pathetic, his rage is impotent, and his attempts to win back Ivy’s respect are cringe-worthy and tragically misjudged.

Cumberbatch’s physicality is key to the performance; Theo’s confident, sprawling posture collapses into a defensive hunch, his voice shifting from a booming lecture to a reedy whine. The actor improvised Theo’s most humiliating moment: attempting to seduce Ivy by poorly reciting Yeats while wearing a silk robe.

3. Kate McKinnon as Amy

Amy, Ivy’s older, never-married sister, arrives like a tornado of chaotic energy to “help.” McKinnon is a revelation, playing against type as a messy, crystal-obsessed life coach whose terrible advice hilariously accelerates the Roses’ demise. She sees the collapse not as a tragedy but as a “cosmic realignment,” urging Ivy to manifest abundance by screaming at hedges.

McKinnon’s improvised monologues about chakras and the healing power of vandalism are comedic highlights. Yet, beneath the absurdity, she brings a poignant truth: she’s the only one who genuinely doesn’t care about their lost status, and her unconditional love becomes Ivy’s unexpected anchor.

4. Andy Samberg as Barry

Barry, Theo’s relentlessly optimistic and financially oblivious agent, is the last man still believing in the “Theo Rose brand.” Samberg delivers his signature man-child charm, but with a darker edge of professional desperation. His increasingly unhinged pitches for Theo’s comeback—from designing eco-friendly prisons to themed mini-golf courses—highlight the absurdity of their former life.

Samberg provides crucial levity, but also pathos. Barry’s eventual realization that his only client is finished leads to the character’s most vulnerable moment: a silent, tearful breakdown in his car before he has to fire his best friend.

5. Ncuti Gatwa as Jeffrey

Jeffrey, the Roses’ young, impeccably dressed personal banker, is the unwitting messenger of their doom. Gatwa radiates a cool, apathetic competence that drives Theo into fits of class-based rage. He handles their financial catastrophe with the same emotion as ordering a coffee, making him the perfect frustrating foil for their heightened melodrama.

Gatwa’s performance is a masterclass in subtle comedy. His character’s tiny, judgmental reactions—a slight eyebrow raise at a purchased antique, a weary sigh at another excuse—silently communicate more contempt than any screamed argument could.

6. Zoë Chao as Sally

Sally, the sharp-tongued editor of the society magazine that once worshipped the Roses, now smells blood in the water. Chao is deliciously venomous, portraying Sally as a journalistic predator who offers Ivy a cover story in exchange for the salacious, off-the-record truth about Theo’s failure.

Chao makes Sally a formidable antagonist whose weapon is information. Her scenes with Colman are a thrilling duel of wit and implication, as Ivy must decide whether to sell out her husband to save her own reputation.

7. Sunita Mani as Jane

Jane, the one friend who stood by them, is the audience’s surrogate—a witness to the carnage who is both horrified and morbidly fascinated. Mani brings a grounded, empathetic bewilderment to the chaos, often reacting to the couple’s fights with silent, wide-eyed disbelief as she slowly backs toward the exit.

Mani’s role, though quieter, is essential. Her character’s final act of kindness—sending Hattie a care package without telling her parents—serves as the story’s lone beacon of decency, entirely separate from the Roses’ toxic orbit.

8. Jamie Demetriou as Rory

Rory, a wealthy, dimwitted former client, becomes the symbol of everything Theo now despises. Demetriou’s impeccable comic timing turns Rory into a hilarious nightmare of vapid privilege, who offers Theo a humiliating commission to design his “cat’s mindfulness retreat” while obliviously recounting his own financial successes.

Demetriou makes Rory’s every line a masterpiece of comedic ignorance. His presence is the ultimate insult to Theo’s injured pride, triggering the film’s most explosively funny and cringe-worthy confrontation.

9. Delaney Quinn & Hala Finley as Hattie Rose (Younger & Older)

Hattie is the Roses’ precocious daughter, who views her parents’ meltdown from the cynical remove of adolescence. Quinn and Finley seamlessly share the role, portraying a girl who is both wounded by her family’s collapse and ironically amused by its absurdity. She documents the drama for her friends with a detached, anthropological fascination.

The actresses bring a heartbreaking layer of realism to the film. Hattie’s journey is to realize that her parents are not just flawed but pathetic, a revelation that is both liberating and devastating. Her final line to them, “You were never happy. You were just rich,” is the emotional gut-punch that defines the entire story.