24 City (Jia Zhangke, 2008). This film hits some familiar themes about the ways luxuriant modernity wipes away the parts of society that provide what little fiscal safety there is for working class people. It hits these familiar themes in an entirely unique way, though. Director Jia Zhangke intermixes actual documentary interviews with actors delivering monologues in the same style as their nonfictional counterparts. One scene might have a person recounting their actual experiences with a factory located in the city of Chengdu, and the next might have an actor telling the same sort of story as a performance. Jia doesn’t offer any clear signifiers between the two modes. When the film finds its way to Joan Chen playing a woman whose friends note that she looks like the famous Chinese actress Joan Chen, I could see through the subterfuge. Otherwise, the line between real and make believe was invisible to me. 24 City is a fascinating experiment. Especially with the metafictional moment with Chen, Jia’s sense of freewheeling cinematic play is pronounced. However, the stylistic commitment means the film also locks into a rhythm that is redundant. It’s mesmerizing but also just a touch numbing.

The War of the Roses (Danny DeVito, 1989). This black comedy centers on a married couple with the last name Rose — wife Barbara (Kathleen Turner) and husband Oliver (Michael Douglas) — who enter into a vicious divorce that reaches its acrimonious apex with a standoff over who gets possession of their lavish house. Danny DeVito directs the film (and takes a role as the lawyer who recounts the tale of woe) with a rascally fervor and follows the story’s bleak worldview to logical conclusions. Douglas is solid in a role that plays to his strength in depicting arrogant dudes who don’t notice that they’ve picked up a thin coat of slime. The film absolutely belongs to Turner. She’s more convincing in the early scenes that show how the pair came together, and she skillfully traces the slow-building contempt Barbara feels for this man she’s stuck with. Turner masters the finer points of staying true to the character’s rage while also making the punchlines land. Her performance makes The War of the Roses into a comic powerhouse.

The Roses (Jay Roach, 2025). This black comedy centers on a married couple with the last name Rose — wife Ivy (Olivia Colman) and husband Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch) — who enter into a vicious divorce that reaches its acrimonious apex with a standoff over who gets possession of their lavish house. There are a few good jokes and sharp observations to be found in this second cinematic pass at adapting Warren Adler’s 1981 novel, The War of the Roses, and both leads uncork at least a couple wicked line readings. There’s no cohesion or proper through line to the storytelling, though. The relationship rarely makes sense, whether it’s in the throes of smitten bliss or ravaged by the storms of nurtured animosity. The professional ups and downs of Ivy and Theo, which provide oily kindling for their marital woes, are presented as gags so obnoxiously broad that they barely make sense. The scathing exchanges feel performative rather than lived in. Maybe most damningly, The Roses comes across as weirdly bland, like the whole movie is an afterthought.