The War of the Roses (1989) review

(9/10)

DeVito has done it again with his usual dark style of direction with abundant dark humor and a meaningful moral.

PLOT:Young businessman Oliver (Michael Douglas) finds it as love as first sight when he runs into a pretty young woman named Barbara (Kathleen Turner). They immediately hit it off and start to build their lives together, buying cars, having kids, and buying a huge, beautiful house to fill with expensive artifacts and work. However, the love begins to die between the two as they begin to see the real person in each other. When the file for divorce, they end up in a battle between each other over who would keep the house. This is no regular battle, however; these two go tooth-and-nail crazy in a war to see who can keep the house. With the help of their associate, Gavin (Danny DeVito, who's also the narrator), they try to pull through. It's a good plot idea executed creatively.



ACTING:The performances in here were pretty great. Douglas and Turner stole the show, as each played off each other perfectly. There were some scenes I could truly see their best moments in. Danny DeVito also played a pretty respectable part as Gavin/the narrator. He told the story with a unique sense of wisdom and philosophy. He made the end of the movie all worthwhile. There weren't very many other performances in this movie aside from these three, but the ones I can honorably mention would be Marianne Sagebrecht as Susan, Sean Astin as Josh, Heather Fairfield as Carolyn, and Rika Hofmann as Elke.

SCORE:There really isn't that much to say about the score, but it was pretty well done to fit the mood.

CAMERAWORK:DeVito, like Kubrick, has a certain vision for capturing things just right. I like his style of camerawork, for he always gets good, quirky, and unique shots.



OTHER CONTENT:This movie is one that can be quite overlooked sometimes. It's unique with its execution, darkly hilarious, and with a meaningful moral at the end. The moral of this story would be to cherish who you have while you have them so you don't end up in an all-out war with each other, over anything. The ending made the whole movie worthwhile, aside from everything else. However, I could see a few ways it could be better. The whole movie up to the divorce war is moving in fast-forward, so to speak, so you miss out on some possible character situations to help you better know their personalities. I understand if they stretched it out that way, it would be long, but I'd risk it for better development.

OVERALL,an awesome comedy with a creatively executed plot, great acting, well done score, DeVito style camerawork, abundant dark humor, and a great moral that fills the movie, but there are a few ways this could be made better.