How sad is this?

Beautiful, moving film.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

There isn't a plethora of funny lines in "The War of the Roses" (it's just not that kind of comedy), but the blistering cynicism about marriage makes them stand out all the same (the stabbing victim in the hospital claimed most of these). If you want to call this a cautionary tale of divorce, I'm just fine with that. Watching these people bitterly drift apart is uncomfortable, and the filmmakers know this because the whole third act is the literal destruction of everything they've labored so long to build. The absurdity is almost a salve.It's a comedy, but also dark as hell. The dialogue, on the other hand, that's fantastic.7/10

I've seen this movie many times before, but not in a very long time. This is a black comedy about a couple, from the moment they meet, through the little stuff that make them start hate each other and up to a complete war that grows worse and worse.This movie is much darker than I remembered, but it's still very funny - and while it obviously fabricates and exaggerates certain situations, it actually shows how awful a divorce process can be, how two people who loved each other come to hate each other and how the process makes them hurt each other as much as possible. It may be fiction, but it's not very far from real life (in fact, there are WORSE divorce situations in real life).Beautiful cinematography by the great Stephen H. Burum (Brian De Palma's regular DP).

This was labelled as a comedy, but had no more jokes than any other film. I don't appreciate IMDb wasting my time by saying this is a comedy, I hope I save someone the time of watching this film if comedy is what they're looking for.The film was just about the rise and fall of the Roses' marriage and is as dull as it sounds. The divorce quickly becomes nasty. This movie might be handy for marriage counselling (well before any problems arise), but isn't useful as entertainment. The description misrepresents the film by only focusing on the divorce, since a large chunk of the movie occurs while they're happily together.Danny DeVito frequently appears, but rarely with any significance. His client in the office really doesn't say enough, it feels very artificial.The casting was good, as the pets and children at various ages blend gracefully.The directing was good.

I caught The War of the Roses in theaters back in '89 when it released and if my memory serves me correct it was over the Christmas period as I distinctively remember festive cheer everywhere in the mall. I was rather surprised when I exited the theater that The War of the Roses should be bundled into a Christmas release schedule when the reality was that the film was rather ruthless and relentless in its depiction of a marriage going sour and turning into two-way bloodbath of a divorce.Having done Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile together most audiences saw Douglas, Turner and DeVito on the poster and possibly subconsciously related it back to that level of comedy. I know I did after viewing the trailer before release. Even though the revenge aspect of the divorce was pretty clear from the trailer it still made things look light and flimsy even though it dealt with a serious issue - perfect Christmas fodder in fact. A comedy about the pratfalls of divorce over Christmas. It could only have one of those happy holiday endings Hollywood is so well known for. Oh how wrong, how very wrong, we we're to assume that! I remember a lot people hating this film. Most people saw it as an all out assault on the institution of marriage with many complaining it was just "too dark for enjoyment". Friends of the family that were going through a tough divorce themselves each walked out respectively, although not together of course, saying the film was too much to handle given the current point they were at in their lives. In fact I remember leaving the theater thinking I'd slipped into some parallel universe and by the looks of the faces on most of the audience, they seemed to have felt that too.The War of the Roses is a tale about a love being ship-wrecked and destroyed on the shores of bitter contempt. Sure it starts out like any love story would - two young strangers meeting in a destined place discovering a passion for one another that is raw and physical - a love at first sight if you will. It doesn't take very long for those pillars to fall leaving a void that is slowly filled with kids, a bigger house and the more trinkets to fill into that bigger house than you could fit into an antique roadshow sale. No longer able to window dress the void, which has now developed into a chasm, Barbara Rose announces that she wants a divorce. Oliver Rose doesn't take her seriously, which only hardens her contempt for him. She says she wants the house - having picked it out herself and slowly filled it with the things that have made it a home. He argues that he paid for the house and everything in it. It's not long before Barbara and Oliver start sinking to new levels of depravity against one another in pursuit of the valuables that defined them during their marriage as the battle lines are drawn.The War of the Roses constantly borders on veering off the edge of comedy and into full out horror. I love black comedies but quite frankly they don't come more darker, nastier and meaner than The War of the Roses. It's a testament to DeVito's brilliant direction here that he is able to pull back at just the right moments so that the film retains its comedic edge - albeit a very bizarre comedic edge that is peppered with spousal brutality unlike anything we have ever seen. Both Douglas and DeVito are in fine form but it's Turner's brilliant turn as Barbara Rose that steals the show. She goes from a loving and caring wife and mother to a cold, aloof almost assassin like vixen by the films end. She is absolutely outstanding in the role.If I do have a slight complaint about the film, it's that it tends to want to puts its leads into " good guy" , "bad guy" camps and somehow DeVito misogynistacly places his female character, Barbara Rose, firmly in the "bad guy" camp. I think this was an ill judgment on his part as he potentially alienates all his female viewers. And as we know in the messy arena of divorce, particularly the nasty ones, there really are no good or bad guys.I caught this on the TV the other night and it reminded me why it's such a much loved classic in my film library. Its lost none of its brutal comedic edge and its willingness to punch, batter and bruise its protagonists till the very bitter end is still alarming and discomforting in the way only a black comedy can alarm and discomfort whilst still trying to make you smile.