The Roses ending explained: What did that white-out finale really mean?

The Roses ending leaves viewers deeply unsettled, and it is meant to. The Roses shows Ivy and Theo Rose reaching the end of their marriage. They try to fix things, but they fail. The Roses' ending feels abrupt. It feels dramatic. It feels like life is hitting pause. The film builds tension in the final act, and each moment heightens the dread.

Disclaimer: This article contains major spoilers for The Roses. Reader's discretion is advised.

Ivy and Theo both fight over the house. They sabotage each other. Ivy even pulls a gun. Theo smashes a cherished oven. Their anger rises. They chase each other around their home, and every act becomes more desperate than the last. Then the gas leak triggers. The screen cuts to white. We do not see what happens next. We only see the brilliant blank that forces the viewer into silence.

This leads to the question the ending poses: Did Ivy and Theo survive? The white screen strongly suggests they did not. The gas had already spread throughout the house, and when Theo struck the flame, it was inevitable. The Roses ending shows a death off-screen, leaving viewers to grasp the emotional weight of that moment. They reconcile just as the explosion looms, making the tragedy even sharper.

The Roses' ending leaves no closure. It forces viewers to face the destruction boiling under their perfect life. It asks how far love can stretch before it snaps, and whether reconciliation can survive cruelty. The ending invites deep questions. It demands viewers to reflect and feel the cost of ambition and resentment.

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What is the meaning of the white out finale in The Roses ending?

The Roses captures Ivy’s shock as she realises the devastating turn her marriage has taken. (Image via YouTube/Searchlight Pictures)

The final cut to white occurs just as Theo simply turns on the gas. Cinematographically, the white flash replaces explicit depiction of disaster or survival. It feels like a final shutter closing on their shared life. Viewers never know if the explosion happens or if they survive injured. The abrupt blank evokes emotional shock.

It mirrors the numbness of a complete relational breakdown. It reflects the erasure of what they built together. The broken oven had already released an overwhelming amount of gas, filling the home completely. Given that reality, it is nearly impossible to believe Ivy and Theo could have survived the final spark.

Screenwriter Tony McNamara, known for The Favourite and Poor Things, uses that blinding fade as a statement on unfinished business. Earlier, Theo smashes Ivy’s oven, a personal symbol of her culinary success, and Ivy nearly lets him choke on her withheld EpiPen. Their reconciliation, brief and heartfelt, feels real, but the gas leak wipes out that moment instantly.

Rather than offering hope, the ending insists that recognition of love can come too late, emphasising that the environment they created was too toxic, both literally and emotionally, to allow survival.

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What does the gun scene in The Roses explain?

The Roses ending escalates as Ivy points a gun at Theo, symbolising how love and resentment collide in their marriage. (Image via YouTube/Searchlight Pictures)

When Ivy points a gun at Theo, it serves as the ultimate symbol of betrayal and rage. This moment does not function as a thriller device. Instead, it shows how far mutual hurt has driven them. Ivy is not looking to take a life. She wants to reclaim power. The escalation makes visible the emotional stakes. It reveals that neither partner can truly forgive or bend. Their inability to communicate has become toxic.

This sequence is also one of the clearest nods to Warren Adler’s The War of the Roses. In both versions, violence becomes symbolic of how marriage disintegrates into survival. Yet in this remake, Olivia Colman’s Ivy does not attempt to kill. Instead, her fury is a release of years of exhaustion, exposing how ambition, pride, and resentment reshaped her identity as both a mother and a wife.

There is still love within their relationship, but it has been buried under years of feeling unseen and alone. That loneliness festers until it unravels in explosive ways, reminding viewers that neglect and isolation can be just as destructive as hatred.

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What open threads remain in The Roses ending?

The Roses reveals Ivy and Theo in therapy, where humour masks the cracks already forming in their marriage. (Image via YouTube/Searchlight Pictures)

Notably, the children are absent in the closing scenes. Their fate remains ambiguous. How will they cope? We never see the legal outcome of the divorce either. We do not know who gets custody of the children or the house. We do know Ivy and Theo reconcile just before the accidental fire, but the gas filling the home ensures their deaths.

That leaves viewers wondering whether the children are inside at the time, and if not, what happens to them after the tragedy. Their future is left unresolved, with no resolution or reconciliation offered.

Another open thread is whether Ivy and Theo would have been able to stay together had they survived. Would their reconciliation have truly worked, or was it destined to be short-lived? Could they have sorted out their differences and rebuilt a healthier relationship, or would old wounds have resurfaced? The film leaves these questions hanging, amplifying the sense of loss.

Earlier in the film, the children, played by Delaney Quinn, Hala Finley, Ollie Robinson, and Wells Rappaport, act as mirrors of their parents’ shifting identities. Under Ivy, they indulge in sweets and excess; under Theo, they become disciplined athletes. Their silence in the ending underscores the story’s sharpest point: the fallout of toxic relationships often lands on the next generation, even when the film does not explicitly show it.

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How does The Roses reflect modern marriage conflicts?

The Roses blends humour and chaos as Ivy holds up Theo’s video call, masking tension with comedy before the marriage unravels. (Image via YouTube/Searchlight Pictures) b

Much of the tension stems from careers. Theo’s architectural triumph crumbles in a storm, while Ivy’s seafood restaurant, cheekily named We’ve Got Crabs, becomes a sensation. The balance of power shifts. Theo becomes resentful as Ivy’s empire expands. Ivy, in turn, grows distant as her public life thrives. These reversals make the story resonate with 2025 audiences, where dual-career households often strain under ambition and ego.

Audiences observe how the remake updates Adler’s story by focusing on ambition and shifting gender roles. Rather than presenting Theo as the clear villain or Ivy as the neglected spouse, both are complicit. Theo’s resentment and Ivy’s detachment intertwine, leaving love suffocated beneath ego. Possessions, the oven, the dream house, the children, become weapons. Their desire to control objects mirrors their failure to nurture each other.

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How does The Roses compare to the original War of the Roses?

The Roses captures a tender yet ironic moment as Ivy and Theo share drinks mid-flight. (Image via YouTube/Searchlight Pictures)

In Danny DeVito’s 1989 film, Oliver and Barbara Rose’s marriage ended in outright malice, with both falling to their deaths from a chandelier. This remake keeps the core, love collapsing into hate, but reshapes it for a modern audience. Instead of deliberate sabotage leading to certain death, Ivy and Theo’s demise feels accidental, born from chaos rather than calculation.

This subtle shift adds bittersweetness. While Oliver and Barbara push each other away in hatred, Ivy and Theo reconcile seconds before disaster. Their final moments are tender, but the inevitability of the gas leak makes that tenderness devastating. By reframing the story, Jay Roach and Tony McNamara suggest that modern marriages collapse not from lack of love, but from the inability to balance pride, ambition, and vulnerability.

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What does The Roses ending ask us about love and failure?

The Roses captures a tender yet ironic moment as Ivy and Theo share drinks mid-flight. (Image via YouTube/Searchlight Pictures)

In the final moments, viewers can sense that love still exists between Ivy and Theo. But it has become weaponised. Their fierce longing has turned into fierce bitterness. The audience feels their regret and the weight of unspoken grievances. The film asks whether genuine love can survive pride and ego. It shows how modern marriages can fall apart quietly. Or combust spectacularly.

At its heart, the film suggests that communication, not passion, determines survival. The therapist who declares their marriage “doomed” early on is proven right. Attempts at reconciliation, romantic trips, therapy sessions, and shared dinners fail because they never strip away pride. By the time they finally admit their enduring love, the gas has already filled the house. That cruel irony is the story’s deepest truth.

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The Roses ending is not a traditional finale. It does not tie up loose ends. However, it still gives viewers closure about the couple’s feelings toward each other. Their reconciliation before the fire shows that love remains, even if it comes too late. It refuses easy comfort, but it delivers emotional truth.

It challenges viewers to sit with devastation and ambiguity, and it makes the audience wonder: if the characters had not died, would they have truly reconciled? Would things have improved, or was their love destined to unravel again? The Roses ending demands reflection, not answers.

The Roses is currently showing in theatres, inviting audiences to experience its unsettling mix of humour and heartbreak on the big screen.