"That depends on what the pâté is made of."

Brief Essays about Movies that Were Important to Me

The War of the Roses (1989)

Brief plot summary: The Roses, Barbara and Oliver, live happily as a married couple. Then she starts to wonder what life would be like without Oliver, and likes what she sees. Both want to stay in the house, and so they begin a campaign to force each other to leave. In the middle of the fighting is D'Amato, the divorce lawyer. He gets to see how far both will go to get rid of the other, and boy do they go far . . .


This film, starring Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, and Danny DeVito, is the darkest of black comedies. When this movie was released during my junior year in high school, my friend Lisa and I went to the theater to see it, and apparently the rest of the audience was not nearly as amused as we were. We were laughing so loudly and so much that people kept turning around and staring at us, and at one point the middle-aged couple in front of us (the woman taught at our school!) got up and moved because we were laughing too loudly.

I love everything about this movie, which was also directed by Danny DeVito, and it contains some of the best, funniest, darkest lines I have ever heard. The movie reaches into the blackest pits of the human soul and finds hilarious humor hiding there. Kathleen Turner's rage is beautiful, and the climax of the film is the most un-Hollywood result one could hope for.

The funniest part of the film, in my opinion, occurs after Oliver leaves the hospital, and he reads the "dying words" love note he composed. Barbara's reaction is priceless, and that is the line that sent the couple in front of us to another row.

If you seek dark black comedy full of evil hilarity, look no further.



Other BEaMtWItM:
Raising Arizona / Dangerous Liaisons