The competitive world of rose cultivation does not promote a sense of heightened drama. It does not require a vigorous weight training program; it is not a contact sport; and it does not need spectators.
Before you scoff at the notion of competitive rose cultivation, you need to realise it is a ardent endeavour and involves a strategic mindset, secrecy, the possibility of industrial espionage and can reap financial rewards.
Eve Vernet is the proprietor of Roses Vernet, a family-owned and operated rose-producing business established by her deceased father. She supplies roses to garden centres across France.
It is a family business that pride's itself on tradition and heritage, especially when it comes to growing and promoting new rose varieties.
The shadow of her father’s impressive life’s work of cultivating new rose varieties looms large in Eve’s life. She carries a heavy emotional burden from that legacy.
Eve
She is obstinate in her traditional approach to the business of rose cultivation. It is that obstinacy that has placed her in the unenviable position of facing bankruptcy. While Eve has endeavoured to cultivate one new variety a year, her competitors, especially her main rival Lamarzell, cultivates new roses using a process of mass-production.
It’s a case of Eve looking at her situation through rose-coloured glasses. For Eve, rose cultivation is a heartfelt undertaking. She is passionate and seeks to discover beauty in what she does, not only for herself, but for the people who will buy and plant her rose cultivars in their own gardens.
For Lamarzell, rose cultivation is a business. Every year Lamarzell floods the market with dozens of new varieties. It is a lucrative business. The rose-buying public want plenty of selections for their gardens, not one precious new rose every growing season.
The other factor for Eve and Lamarzell is the annual judging of roses. Because Lamarzell has an over-abundance of blooms compared to Eve’s single cultivar, Lamarzell wins the trophy thus ensuring mass sales.
Lamarzell also exploits another advantage, the possession a one highly prized cultivar that the company keeps locked securely and refuses to share with any one else for cross pollination.
Eve believes if Lamarzell shared the rose she could produce an astounding new rose that would be stunning to the eye and successful in the marketplace.
Lamarzell refuses. He is not a horrible person but his business practices underlie a man whose is ugly on the inside. In the process, Eve’s distributors and the people who buy the roses are cancelling orders and Eve is about to loose her beloved family business that her father cherished.
Lamarzell and Eve and the special rose
Lamarzell sees a business opportunity disguised as a caring gesture towards Eve and offers to buy her business to become part of Lamarzell’s soulless company.
Salvation for Eve’s business appears in the form of three workers, Fred, Nadèdge and Samir, chosen by Eve’s loyal business manager, Véra, who arrive, much to Eve’s annoyance, to assist her with the production of roses.
There’s only one problem. None of them knows anything about growing, cultivating and caring for Eve’s precious plants. Véra has promised the three with steady employment. You would be correct in suggesting the spirit of co-operation between these players is less than friendly.
Eve displays obstinacy as well as becoming cantankerous in the process. Eve regards them as no more than pests and thorns in her side--a necessary evil—like the natural pests that can infest her precious roses while she pursues her passion for rose cultivation.
That is, until she discovers that Fred has a special talent for disarming alarm systems and cutting his way through Lamarzell’s defences guarding the precious rare rose. No-one asks how he got these skills but it’s evident that he didn’t learn them from an agricultural college.
Fred, Nadèdge and Samir may not have conventional gardening skills, but they are handy at other less transparent talents.
Eve suddenly finds herself in a spot of espionage and the ensuing events are tinged with humour and a sense of heartfelt comraderie with her newfound partners in thrill-seeking gardening exploits.
VIEW: A Gift from a Rose to a Garden (A gallery of roses from Eclectic Stefan's home garden)
Roses are centre stage in The Rose Maker but the film is primarily about people and how they share common human traits. This group of disparate individuals are hybridised into a cohesive group. Not to make too much of the point, but it’s similar to crossing different varieties of roses resulting in something new and fresh.
Fred, Nadèdge and Samir come across as rough, inelegant and blunt, but their hearts are true. Fred, Nadèdge and Samir learn rose growing skills and Eve discovers that obstinacy is not the only emotion of which she is capable. She is capable of warmth, co-operation, understanding and patience.
That includes Véra, who Eve has taken for granted. A special note must be made of Véra’s delicate little car, which becomes a complicit character of its own for a time.
Although her roses may be beautiful in their appearance and fragrance, Eve realises that beauty comes from within and resides around her relationship with others.
Take time to smell the roses; watch The Rose Maker.
Official Trailer The Rose Maker 2020 (French with subtitles)
The Rose Maker
Released: 2020
Director: Pierre Pinaud
(French with subtitles)
Screening in cinemas.
NOTE: Depending on the pandemic guidelines in your local area regarding lockdowns, border restrictions, and the closure of cinemas, please check your local arthouse cinema for session times.
As far as Screen Speak is aware, The Rose Maker is unavailable currently for streaming on any streaming service.
FILM EXTRAS: Movies with rose scents
The Name of the Rose (1986) Director: Jean-Jaques Annaud. IOn the 14th century, William of Baskerville (Sean Connery), a renowned Franciscan monk, and his apprentice, Adso of Melk (Christian Slater), travel to an abbey where a suspicious death has occurred. Using his deductive powers, William begins investigating what he believes to be murder. During the course of his investigation, several more monks die. With fear running through the abbey, the church leaders call Bernardo Gui (F. Murray Abraham), William's nemesis, to find the truth. WATCH: Unavailable to Buy/Rent/Stream at this time. Check possible availability on streaming services in your region. |  |
 | La Vie En Rose (2007) Director: Olivier Dahan Born into poverty and raised in a brothel, Édith Piaf (Marion Cotillard) manages to achieve worldwide fame. Though her extraordinary voice and charisma open many doors that lead to friendships and romances, she experiences great personal loss, drug addiction and an early death. WATCH: Buy/Rent La Vie En Rose |
The Rose (1979) Director: Mark Rydell Rose (Bette Midler) is a passionate 1960s rock star who pours herself into every performance despite her demanding manager, Rudge (Alan Bates), who encourages her to tour excessively. While singing is her greatest love, the rock 'n' roll lifestyle takes its toll as Rose succumbs to drug and alcohol abuse. Only Rose's kind-hearted boyfriend, Dyer (Frederic Forrest), tries to save her from falling victim to her own success in this drama loosely based on the life of Janis Joplin. WATCH: Unavailable to Buy/Rent/Stream at this time. Check possible availability on streaming services in your region. |  |
 | The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) Director: Woody Allen Unhappily married Depression-era waitress Cecilia (Mia Farrow) earns the money while her inattentive husband, Monk (Danny Aiello), wastes their meager income on getting drunk and gambling. To assuage her loneliness, Cecilia escapes to the picture show and becomes transfixed with the movie The Purple Rose of Cairo, and especially with its lead character, archeologist Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels). When Tom literally steps out of the screen and into her life, both realities are thrown into chaos. WATCH: Buy/Rent/Stream The Purple Rose of Cairo. |
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977) Director: Anthony Page I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is a semi-autobiographical account of a teenage girl's three-year battle with schizophrenia. Deborah Blau, bright and artistically talented, has created a world, the Kingdom of Yr, as a form of defense from a confusing, frightening reality. WATCH: Unavailable to Buy/Rent/Stream at this time. Check possible availability on streaming services in your region. |  |
FILM EXTRAS (The Sequel): Movies with floral accents
Enchanted April (1991) British women Rose Arbuthnot (Miranda Richardson) and Lottie Wilkins (Josie Lawrence) decide to take a break from their respective spouses. They stay at a castle in Italy for a quiet holiday. Joining them are Caroline Dester (Polly Walker), a young socialite, and Mrs. Fisher (Joan Plowright), an older aristocrat. Liberated from their daily routines, the four women ease into life in rural Italy, and each finds herself transformed by the experience. WATCH: Unavailable to Buy/Rent/Stream at this time. Check possible availability on streaming services in your region. |  |
 | Being There (1979) A simple gardener, Chance (Peter Sellers), has resided in the Washington, D.C. townhouse of his wealthy employer for his entire life and been educated only by television. Chance is forced to vacate his home when his boss dies. While wandering the streets, he encounters business mogul Ben Rand (Melvyn Douglas), who assumes Chance to be a fellow upper-class gentleman. Soon Chance is ushered into high society, and his unaffected gardening wisdom makes him the talk of the town. WATCH: Buy/Rent/Stream Being There |
Adaptation (2002) Nicolas Cage is Charlie Kaufman, a confused L.A. screenwriter overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy, sexual frustration, self-loathing, and by the screenwriting ambitions of his freeloading twin brother Donald (Nicolas Cage). While struggling to adapt "The Orchid Thief," by Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep), Kaufman's life spins from pathetic to bizarre. The lives of Kaufman and Orlean's book become strangely intertwined as each one's search for passion collides with the others. Charles (Charlie) Kaufman is a real life American screenwriter, producer, director, and novelist. He wrote the films Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. WATCH: Buy/Rent/Stream Adaptation
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 | Little Shop of Horrors (1986) Meek flower shop assistant Seymour (Rick Moranis) pines for co-worker Audrey (Ellen Greene). During a total eclipse, he discovers an unusual plant he names Audrey II, which feeds only on human flesh and blood. The growing plant attracts a great deal of business for the previously struggling store. After Seymour feeds Audrey's boyfriend, Orin (Steve Martin), to the plant after Orin's accidental death, he must come up with more bodies for the increasingly bloodthirsty plant. By the way, despite the film summary, Little Shop of Horrors is a musical-comedy. WATCH: Rent/Buy Little Shop of Horrors |
Secret Life of Plants (1979) Micro- and time-lapse photography support the theory that plants have emotions. Music by Stevie Wonder. WATCH: Unavailable to Buy/Rent/Stream at this time. Check possible availability on streaming services in your region. |  |
 | Ferngully: The Last Rainforest (1992) Animation Crysta (Samantha Mathis) is a fairy who lives in FernGully, a rainforest in Australia, and has never seen a human before. In fact, she is told they are extinct. But when a logging company comes near the rainforest, she sees that they do exist, and even accidentally shrinks one of them, a boy named Zak (Jonathan Ward). Now her size, Zak sees the damage that the company does and helps Crysta to stop not only them, but an evil entity named Hexxus (Tim Curry), who feeds off pollution. WATCH: Rent Ferngully: The Last Rainforest |
Jean de Florette (1987) French with subtitles Jean de Florette is a merciless study in human nature, set in Provence in the 1920s. It's the story of how two provincial French farmers systematically destroy the happiness of a man who comes out from the city to till the land. WATCH: Rent/Buy/Stream Jean De Florette |  |
 | Howard's End (1992) Helen Schlegel falls for Paul Wilcox, but is rebuffed. Her sister Margaret becomes friends with his mother, who promises her the family house, Howards End. Unfortunately, after her death, the will disappears and it appears the inheritance will disappear. Until the widower, Henry Wilcox, becomes attracted to Margaret. WATCH: Unavailable to Buy/Rent/Stream at this time. Check possible availability on streaming services in your region. |
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