War Of The Roses [1989] [DVD] [1990] War of the Roses – Ms. P. Juett – UK
Seller responded quickly after purchase to advise that the DVD wasn’t in the condition advertised. She frank and honest, and gave a full refund – thank you:-)
Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas are always great together and I think they really do their best duo work together in this film in what is a dark comedy about how being materialistic is not always the best thing to be.
Told in reflection by Danny DeVito as a lawyer, he recalls the story which sent him back to his form chainsmoking self. Turner and Douglas meet and seem to have the perfect marriage for many years with two children growing up to leave the nest (cue Sean Astin (Samwise the Brave)). However over the years Douglas works all day and comes home to his perfect house made perfect by Turner. Deciding enough is enough she asks for a divorce in exchange for the house she built – a house that Douglas will not yeild as it was made with his money.
From there is decends into a battle of increasingly outlandish getbacks to make sure they secure the house including dog pate, cat killing, plate smashing and mousetrap setting. Each time the actions get more desperate.
I won’t spoil the ending but its fantastic and I’ve watched this film so many times it never fails to make me laugh and I never know who to side with either which is great.
If you enjoy comedy, love films gone wrong or dark humour you’ll love War Of The Roses : Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito are reunited for a third time to fabulous effect in The War of the Roses. This is a dark, disturbing comedy of marital trauma and revenge, which couldn’t be more different from their sunnier outings in Romancing the Stone and The Jewel of the Nile. Douglas and Turner, in career-best performances, are the materialistic, consumer-driven Roses of the title (Oliver and Barbara) whose seemingly perfect marriage has soured beyond repair; their only point of contact is their meticulously maintained dream house, which Douglas bought and Turner decorated to perfection. When Turner gets a taste of financial independence, she asks Douglas for a divorce–all she wants is the house and everything in it (aside from his clothes and shaving kit). He laughs at her and she punches him in the face. Things only get worse from there, as nasty divorce proceedings (with DeVito as Douglas’s lawyer) give way to insults, threats, ruined dinner parties and pet abuse. And through it all, the Roses begin destroying their beloved home and its contents, just to spite each other. DeVito, who also directed, takes Michael Leeson’s blacker-than-black screenplay and gives it a hyper-stylised spin, complete with skewed camera angles and wonderfully expressionistic cinematography (by Stephen Burum) as Douglas and Turner barricade themselves in their house, both refusing to give an inch. Shocking for a mainstream studio picture, with its unsympathetic protagonists, escalating bitterness and disturbing finale, Roses is a poisonously funny valentine to both marriage and 1980s materialism, tempered only by its framing device as a cautionary tale. –Mark Englehart, Amazon.com War Of The Roses [1989] [DVD] [1990]
