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| War of the Roses, The |
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  (8/10)
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Runtime: 116 |
| Public Rating: 6.55 (11 votes) |
Director: Danny DeVito |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Drama/Comedy |
Year: 1989 |
| Writer(s): Warren Adler (novel), Michael Leeson |
| Distributor: 1 |
| Reviewed by: Arturo García Lasca |
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This fine story based on Warren Adler's novel was lucky to have a great cast which invloves Michael Douglas and Catherine Turner, otherwise I'm sure almost noone would have seen this film. I think this is Danny DeVito's best directing work so far, of course he hasn't directed much. While some say this film is pointless and makes the viewers angry at the end, I say it's very entertaining to watch and the even if the film turned it's comedy into some dark irritating one it's still great, it shows some originality, it shows how it wasnt meant to be the kind of movie everyone was happy about when it finished, and that's actually a good thing.
Gavin D'Amato (Danny DeVito) is telling a story about a friend of his and his wife: Oliver and Barbara Rose (Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner), and all the troubles they went through while divorcing. Olive Rose is a lawyer whose wife got tired of him and wants the divorce, but Oliver doesn't want to get split, he still has feelings for his wife, and he'd like to solve all the problems. Barbara makes clear that this is impossible and she tries to take all the possible material stuff in the divorce. She also tries to kick him out of the house, but he manages to stay in there, even though not in the same room. That's basically the plot, from here on all you see are the problems between them and how cruelty Barbara treats Oliver, how he takes all of this, stuff like that.
Some of the things Barbara does are quite crazy, so it might lead you to think she is a little bit insane. Oliver never lost his head, he always acted in a reasonable way. While divorcing, Barbara starts a successful business making patee, showing how she doesn't really care about getting divorced, she got over it very quickly, her mind is already thinking about a new business so actually she never even had to get over anything, or at least looks like it. While she shows no hard feelings for getting divorced, Oliver seems to be quite worried and sad about it.
Douglas was pretty fine as the husband who was suffering and yet managing to try to fight back with his wife, and Turner was also great as the cruel wife who treated her ex-husband like her worst enemy, gotta love Turner's evil look. DeVito seems relaxed through the whole film since he's telling a story that has already happened, his few narration lines were fine, and his directing was pretty good I'd say. It's fun to see how the divorce problems are exaggerated to the biggest extent in here, it gets to the point where it's almost unbelievable the fact that a couple could do all the stuff the Roses are doing. But don't expect to be laughing the whole time during this film, it's more of a dark comedy, it could irritate some people actually, Turner was driving me crazy while I watched the film, I really hated her. Good film, I'd recommend it any time.
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