The premise is simple enough: a moderately wealthy couple—whose last name is Rose—decides to get divorced after many years of marriage. But neither of them wants to give up their house, and both remain living in it, getting on each other's nerves as they deliberately and maliciously annoy and attack each other, each in an attempt to get the other to give up and leave.It's exactly the sort of film I don't normally enjoy, where two equally detestable parties go back and forth trying to one up each other with ridiculous shenanigans that are rarely funny and never make up for the ninety minutes of wasted time. It reminds me of dumb comedy films like Duplex—which pits neighbor against neighbor—and Are We There Yet?, in which Ice Cube goes up against his new girlfriend's mischievous kids. These sorts of films aren't typically my cup of tea, but it wasn't my turn to pick the movie, so I just sat back and watched.And then a funny thing occurred. Almost immediately, I got drawn into the story. That wasn't supposed to happen, but it did, and I was pleasantly surprised. I normally don't even care for Danny DeVito as a director, probably due to the fact that he made the awful Duplex, which I mentioned earlier. I mean, I did enjoy Matilda, but that was a family movie that I watched as a kid. War of the Roses was something else entirely, and despite my efforts, I couldn't help but enjoying it.It tells the story in a different way than others of its kind. Things unfold naturally and totally believably. Sure, some of the stunts that the characters pull reach the same levels of ridiculousness as in those other films that I didn't like, but here we get the impression that it's done for the sake of the story, rather than for just another cheap laugh. Instead of yawning, I was wide sitting wide-eyed on the edge of my seat. It's not just funny; it's also very real and poignant, especially considering the fact that most of us know someone who's had a really tough divorce and it's easy to see how things could go just as bad as they do in War of the Roses.And, unlike most of these kinds of movies and apart from my expectations, we actually end up caring about the characters, despite their overabundance of flaws. They're both selfish idiots, which makes the story so much better, but they're still believable and very well acted. From moment to moment we find ourselves siding with each one. Neither of them could be called true protagonists, as they constantly antagonize each other, but there's a balance of both deserved animosity and loathsomeness between them that is very well done. They got good actors to play these roles, and they play them so well that we almost don't notice that it could have been much worse in the hands of anyone else.The whole story is told by Danny DeVito, who plays a divorce attorney who is telling it as a warning to a prospective client who never says a word during the entire film. And the ending is great. I won't spoil it, but trust me, it's a good one. This definitely isn't the best film I've seen, but it's certainly the best of its kind, and makes me reconsider my attitude toward this type of film. I just thought the whole idea was bad, but it turns out that it's often just done very poorly.

"The War of the Roses" is a film told using that old literary device of the "framework technique". Gavin D'Amato, a divorce lawyer, is discussing case with a client. Realising that relationships between the man and his estranged wife have become very bitter, Gavin decides to tell him a cautionary tale based on the true story of his former partner Oliver Rose. The film then flashes back to Oliver's courtship of, and marriage to, his wife Barbara. Oliver is highly successful in his professional career and is promoted to a partner in his law firm. He, Barbara and their two children appear to be living the American dream in a luxurious house.Their marriage, however, is not faring so well, and Barbara shocks Oliver when she asks him for a divorce. Although he believes that the marriage can still be saved, he reluctantly agrees, but things start to get worse when the couple fall out over the financial arrangements, especially ownership of the house. Neither seems willing to give way on this point, and they begin to wage an ever-deepening war against one another, seeking to destroy first each other's most cherished possessions and then each other's reputations.The film stars Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner who had earlier acted together in "Romancing the Stone" and its sequel, "The Jewel of the Nile". In one respect Turner might have seemed miscast. The script implies that Oliver and Barbara are around the same age, whereas in reality Turner is ten years younger than Douglas and at 35 was really too young for the part. Barbara, after all, is supposed to have been married for around twenty years and to be the mother of two children in their late teens. This is, however, one piece of apparent miscasting which turned out to be absolutely right. Turner plays Barbara as a force of nature, a sort of deranged fury eaten up with hatred for her husband and absolutely determined to have what she sees as her rights, no matter what the cost. There is no rational reason for her dislike of Oliver; when he asks her why she wants a divorce all can reply is that she has a desire to "smash his face in". At the same time she is sexy enough to make us understand why, for all her spiteful antics, her husband still, in an odd way, is still in love with her- and nobody could do deranged but sexy like Turner as she was to prove in another, later black comedy, "Serial Mom" in which she plays another suburban housewife turned avenging fury. Douglas's Oliver is subtly different. Although he can be just as spiteful as Barbara, we get the sense that he is more sinned against than sinning, a man who has worked hard to provide as good a life as possible for his family only to have his love thrown back in his face by an ungrateful wife. Barbara announces her intention to divorce him when he has just come out of hospital, which seemed particularly cruel. Some of his tricks, such as his insistence in remaining in the house after the couple have split up, seem to be motivated partly by a desire for revenge but also partly by a desire to stay close to the person who has been at the centre of his life for so long. My one complaint would be that he seems too old in the early scenes when he is supposed to be a young student. DeVito is also good as Gavin, desperately caught in the middle of a battle between two people he considers friends. Although it has an ostensibly improving moral about the need for tolerance and mutual understanding in marriage and personal relationships, "The War of the Roses" is essentially a black comedy. It can be seen as a romantic comedy in reverse. Many rom-coms are based around the "Pride and Prejudice" story of how a couple start off by disliking one another and end up by falling in love; this film simply reverses the process. A comedy on this theme could have become very nasty and mean-spirited, but in the hands of Danny DeVito, who directed the film as well as playing Gavin, and of its two stars, it somehow manages to avoid this fate. It is one of the funniest unromantic comedies of the eighties. 8/10

Late night television in the modern era is the final resting place of former Hollywood hits. It also has the advantage in this more conservative America of being unedited. So I couldn't miss a chance to view again this classic , commercial free.The War of the Roses (1989) is also the sunset of the great paring of Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas who together made some of the more memorable movies of the 1980's.This is the life and times of Oliver and Barbara Rose. A married couple with grown children who are getting a divorce. We are invited as voyeurs to witness this collapse by a family friend , Attorney Gavin D'Amato (Danny DeVito). Anyone who has gone through separation and marriage in their lives can relate to the storyline.The Script is the life of the party , and is greatly enhanced by Douglas and Turner's long tenure of on screen works. Their team effort pays off in bringing a more chilling reality to what other wise could have been a disaster of a film. Credit goes to Danny DeVito for his direction but with this unique acting team and a script of this beauty(written by Michael Leeson), it was probably a movie you could not wreck even if you intentionally tried.The flow of the film is magical as more and more psychological and socially dysfunctional scenarios stack upon one another to make one train wreck of a marriage. Support from actors such as Sean Astin and the like can feel marginal but it is most certainly only a perception owed to the lead actors over the top performance. The Film is as amusing as it is thought provoking in the area of personal relationships.Four Stars(of 5).

I definitely wouldn't recommend this film. At all. I knew what the film was about beforehand but I didn't expect to see the same thing all the way through. There is a plot and there is a moral to the film. And whilst I understand the moral. The plot is pathetic. The film represents this moral in a really bad way. There seems to be almost no purpose to the film what so ever. If you're thinking to watch this film, don't.SPOILERS AHEAD: I don't get this film. It starts off okay almost like it's building up to something really good. It doesn't make sense that the couple are so violent with each other. I know it's a black comedy but still. It's not realistic in any way. I think the moral is decent but definitely could be presented in a better way.