The Roses ending explained: The fate of Theo and Ivy and their marriage

Some marriages are meant to last, some are meant to explode; The Roses falls somewhere gloriously in between, and Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman are absolutely magnetic in the chaos. By the time the ending blooms, audiences are left questioning who truly “wins” when love, ego, and obsession collide. And if the ending scene and the cut to white left you confused about the ending too, then you're at the right place!

Here we’ll dig into the final act, unpacking the symbolism, the character twists, and the ultimate message about relationships gone wildly off-script. Here's what happens to Benedict's Theo and Olivia's Ivy at the end of The Roses, and what the film tells us about their marriage.

What is The Roses about?

Still from The Roses (Image via YouTube /@searchlightpictures)

It begins in London with a chance meeting. Theo, an ambitious young architect, falls for Ivy, a passionate chef with a dream of opening her own restaurant in America. Over wine and laughter, they make promises to chase that dream together.

Ten years later, promises have calcified into compromises. They are married with two children, Hattie and Roy. Ivy, once on the cusp of independence, has put her career on hold for motherhood. Theo, driven by prestige, designs a museum that collapses in a violent storm, destroying both his reputation and his livelihood. In the same breath, Ivy’s long-postponed dream begins to bloom, her restaurant opens, a glowing review propels her into success, and suddenly the roles inside their home invert.

As Ivy becomes the breadwinner, Theo takes over the household, enforcing strict routines, diets, and discipline that edge her out of her children’s world. Resentment brews. Their romantic trips to New York, their rounds of counseling, even their half-hearted reconciliations, all collapse under the weight of envy and unmet expectations.

When Ivy franchises her restaurant, she gifts Theo the chance to build the house they once imagined together. Three years later, the house stands finished, but their marriage is hollow. Their children, now on sports scholarships in Miami, leave behind parents who can no longer mask their bitterness.

Ivy humiliates Theo in front of friends, and Theo, fresh from saving a beached whale in a moment of clarity, admits he no longer loves her. Divorce looms. She wants everything. He asks only for the house, the last relic of the dream they once shared.

How conflicts turn into something deadlier in The Roses

Ivy and Theo's marriage in The Roses goes out in flames, almost literally. The film’s climax is as chaotic and devastating with the relationship at its center, bringing Theo and Ivy to the brink in every possible sense. For two hours, we’ve watched them unravel with savage creativity, turning their marital home into a battleground. And by the time the final act arrives, it’s less about who “wins” and more about how far two people can go when love curdles into vengeance.

What begins with small, cutting acts of sabotage quickly escalates into a war of absurd proportions. Theo gets Ivy blacklisted from her culinary world by engineering a bogus health inspection. Ivy retaliates with equally merciless precision, ensuring Theo’s architecture career goes up in smoke. But it’s when food enters the picture that things turn deadly.

Theo baits Ivy, who has a severe raspberry allergy, into eating a cake that could kill her. He wields the EpiPen like a bargaining chip, demanding she finally sign over the house. Though he saves her life anyway, the betrayal leaves Ivy grasping for their defense gun, sparking a chase that leaves their home, and marriage, teetering on collapse.

What follows is a sequence of shocking, oddly comic destruction. Oranges are hurled like grenades. Antique daggers come down from their places on the wall. Ivy releases live crabs into Theo’s bath. He retaliates by locking her in a room and blaring polka music at an unbearable volume. And then, in one of the most symbolic acts, their beloved Julia Child oven, an heirloom Ivy treasures, is smashed and damaged in the chaos. That broken stove will play an explosive role in their fate.

In the fever of confrontation, Theo finally surrenders to honesty, confessing that his love for Ivy never died. Her grip loosens, the gun falls away, and in a breathless reversal, she admits the same. Oblivious, Theo calls on the house’s AI to ignite the fire. The request is granted, and their reunion vanishes in a violent blaze of white, love consumed by ruin. But passion blinds them to danger. The shattered oven hisses, gas seeping into the air. When Theo casually commands the AI to light the fire, their fragile reconciliation combusts, the screen erupts into a blinding white silence.

So...did Theo and Ivy end up dying in The Roses?

The film heavily implies it, yes. It's an ambiguous ending with a lot of obviousness in the hints. The sad part, however, is that their ending came just as they sorted out their differences and came back to each other. That ambiguity is what roots The Roses to more mystery.

Director Jay Roach opened up about the film's ending and told Entertainment Weekly:

"I love that there is even room for a little discussion about that. That's what I want people to argue about that. I hope everybody walks out going, 'They almost figured that out. They were just this far off.'"

Olivia Colman, who plays Ivy seems to have a much different perspective on the ending. Or so it seems. The actress tells the outlet:

"They definitely have a very happy life, and they never fight again. They probably buy a little fishing boat. And they go out and they spend time where they're just together on the sea."

Cumberbatch, playing Theo adds:

"Because they've gone quite that far, you'd really have to put some safeguarding in place. They would definitely need to go back into therapy properly and admit their failings and go, 'Okay, we got it wrong, but we've got something we want to save.' They need something that's completely their own that they share, which could be a dog. They're sharing that."

The ambiguity in the ending of The Roses

The ending of The Roses is less about who lives or dies and more about what survival even means in love. Jay Roach leaves the moment suspended, a blaze that could symbolize both destruction and rebirth. Theo and Ivy don’t reunite in the traditional sense, they fuse, dangerously, like sparks on a leaking gas line. In trying to ignite warmth, Theo sparks oblivion. That short and subtle moment of romance becomes something bigger.

The film leaves us asking whether love is salvation or destruction, and if intimacy is ever truly safe when shadows still linger in the room. As for the ending, we can very much lean towards Ivy and Theo's demise. A portrayal of how materialistic obsession over human connection could just end up burning both.

The Roses is now in theaters.