The War of the Roses

Danny DeVito may be known as a captivating performer who continually impressed whenever he appeared in a project, but his work as a director may not be as well known. While only having five theatrical releases to his name, those were enough to give a look into his wonderfully warped, disturbed and goofy style of filmmaking that resulted in films that weren’t always loved, but were usually remembered for their bizarre and twisted elements. His 1996 adaptation of the Roald Dahl book, Matilda, is easily his best-known, and films like Death to Smoochy, Throw Momma from the Train, and Hoffa aren’t great, but demonstrated his directing style in an unforgettable fashion, but arguably his best film that perfectly utilizes all his strengths is the 1989 20th Century Fox romantic dark comedy, The War of the Roses.

Harvard law student Oliver Rose (played by Michael Douglas) meets a woman named Barbara (played by Kathleen Turner) at an auction while attempting to bid for the same antique, sparking a relationship that leads to all the meaningful stages of romance like getting married, having kids and moving into a big fancy house. While everything seems picturesque, cracks start to form in this seemingly perfect relationship, spurned from Barbara’s unfulfillment as a housewife and Oliver’s workaholism and controlling behaviour. What starts as small grievances devolves into bitter resentment, causing both to file for a divorce that can’t be fully put through as both want to keep the house. With Barbara claiming ownership due to finding and designing it herself, and Oliver believing his earnings give him custody over the abode, the two try to force the other out by any means necessary (even stooping to aggressive tactics). With everyone around them (including their children), seeing the monsters they’ve become over something so petty, these former lovers would rather kill themselves over this feud than admit the other is right.

Based on a novel written by Warren Adler and taking its name from the real world war between two feuding English houses fighting for ownership of the throne during the 13th century, The War of the Roses is an insane, chaotic, constantly escalating experience that displays DeVito’s great deranged directing style, but becomes fully rounded thanks to a great script, very entertaining leading performances and a twisted sense of humor that provides many uncomfortable snickers.

Black comedy can be very fun to watch, and divorce feels like the perfect subject matter to convey within this genre. Being a messy situation that can easily be blown out of proportion, the idea for this story is just the right amount of composed and ridiculous that it allows viewers to get invested in the tragedy of a seemingly happy couple falling apart due to personal grievances, but also get swept up in the multitude of ways they try to hurt each other in a drastically bitter fashion. You can see what DeVito saw in this source material, and he picked a lot of the right people to get the most out of it, getting James L. Brooks (co-creator of shows like The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Taxi and The Simpsons) on as a producer, hiring Michael J. Leeson (who wrote for shows like Taxi, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Odd Couple, All in the Family and The Partridge Family) to be the film’s screenwriter, and using his past connections with Turner and Douglas to get them to star, it had all the right pieces.

While a scenario like this has a lot of great comedic potential, there’s always the chance it could wear out its welcome, as the format of the story almost feels repetitive around the second half where both start to try and force the other out of the house, but the film’s sharp pace and surprisingly solid scripting keeps things moving at a constant rate and appropriately builds upon each scenario so that things never get stale. The opening is wonderfully cruel with how it nicely establishes these two as a regular couple with supposedly real feeling for each other, the middle has a lot of fun ripping apart that cheery veneer and revealing the boiling resentment hidden within both of them, and the ending is pure insanity with great gothic imagery, psychotic performances, and a final nail in the coffin that’s wonderfully bittersweet. This kind of movie won’t work for everyone (especially people who can’t get behind the pure juvenility of the situation), but for those willing to get swept up in beautiful creepy visuals, morally questionable leads and a pretty mean-spirited atmosphere, it will offer bucket loads of enjoyment.

Danny DeVito definitely had the right idea when he cast Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas as the Roses, as having worked alongside them in the comedy-adventure film, Romancing the Stone, and its sequel, The Jewel of the Nile, he must’ve known how fun it would be to take the two who played a sunny, twitterpated classical couple, and watch them become the most boorishly aggressive, toxic couple. The results are instantly effective, with both Douglas and Turner doing fantastic at playing a typical romantic pairing that takes jabs in good jest and then twisting them into self-indulgent man-children who are willing to go to extreme lengths in order to one-up the other. The intensity of their deliveries before and after they let their true selves shine is great to witness, the fast-paced, unfiltered dialogue leads to a lot of great lines and interactions, and while you do feel the tragedy of these two losing their once meaningful spark, the lengths they go in order to hurt the other proves it never would’ve worked between them

While most of the supporting cast don’t provide much to the story, they are played by colorful actors who add to the environment and tone. Danny DeVito acts as a nice stable presence as the somewhat narrator of the film, Marianne Sägebrecht as a live-in nurse for the Rose family is innocently sweet and gets some good moments of reacting to the chaos, Sean Astin and Heather Fairfield as the Rose children don’t play as large of a part as you’d imagine, but their brief moments are nice windows into the growing divide between both parties, and even the pets for this family are an obvious but effective metaphor for the internal separation between husband and wife (and how they’re used in the growing feud is truly twisted). It’s not a movie that really has an extended cast, which is a bit of a shame given how much fun the leads are in this crazy tone (they literally look and feel like monsters during the climax), but it’s a minor complaint.

Probably the most fun aspect of this movie and all of DeVito’s directorial features is how they look, as his clear love for dark twisted material and quirky, experimental ideas combines into a visual style that knows how to be unsettling and strange, but also weird and wildly interesting in its delivery. There’s a lot of gothic influence involved in the framing, editing, coloration and especially shadow work, but with that additional silly factor, it becomes entirely his own and creates a wonderfully specific tone that can make something uncomfortable and humorous at the same time. Since this film is more humorous for its actions than its dialogue, the display of the film is going to factor into that delivery, and the cinematography by Stephen H. Burum is incredibly well handled, with every shot, angle and pan feeling purposeful positioned in the best way possible in order to fully capture the mood and attitude of every scene. The editing by Lynzee Klingman can be slow, but the occasional fantastic transition makes it feel intentional, and when paired with the great imagery and camera work, it leads to all around great looking film.

The production design by Ida Random almost takes on a character of its own, especially in regard to the main house. The rest of the world has this artificial look that makes everything feel strange and unnatural (especially during the opening, clearly trying to give off the feeling of a fairy tale or story book), but the manor is a great setting for this kind of narrative, starting off as this decadent home cluttered with expensive add-ons, before turning into a stone-coloured death trap that feels suffocating to be in. The glassy floors and mute colouring act in nice contrast with the more colorful outside world, the various knick-knacks and ornaments make for nice set dressing yet are extra useful during the climax when used as weapons, and the way it’s used both as a bargaining chip but also a symbol for their own vanity is perfectly in-your-face. The musical score by David Newman has an elegant flowing quality that works nicely within the romantic sets yet also features a hint of melancholy and even bouncy lunacy as well, rounding in all the film’s facets in a very nice fashion. Even the intro sequence created by famous graphic and intro designers, Saul Bass and Elaine Bass, perfectly epitomizes the tone and vibe of the film without even needing to spell it out, and also just makes for a very visually pleasing opening.

It’s a bit of a shame that Danny DeVito didn’t make many movies over the course of his very long career, and now that his acting career has also slowed, it’s nice to look back and see not only what he brought as a performer, but also as a filmmaker, and this is easily one of the best places to start. The War of the Roses was a critical and commercial success of the time and considering a 2025 remake starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman was recently released, it certainly still has traction many years later, but its lacklustre presentation and overly passive nature prove it can’t even come close to what came before it. With stylish direction, very engaging leading performances, enrichingly gothic imagery, and a delightfully disturbed tone, this martial feud is one of the few uncomfortable scenarios you just can’t turn away from.