The War of the Roses, 1989

This fantastic black comedy directed by Danny De Vita and starred by himself, Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner is a deep exploration of the war between the sexes at it's worst. They start as a Martha Stewart perfect example of a perfect family with a great income, a beautiful house, two kids going to Harvard, his dog and her cat. What could possibly go wrong with such perfect lives right? Well, wrong she's not happy with their lives and she wants out, he takes it hard at the beginning but then accepts that she's leaving. There is one problem however, they both want the house and neither is going to back down. He paid for everything in it, but she found it and dedicated 18 years of her life to making it perfect. Most of the movie is dedicated to the escalating war they have while trying to make the other give the house up. You won't believe just how far seemingly normal people go when convinced they are right. On a deeper level the movie explores the problems of rushed, passion based marriages; of the law business and even the differences between dog people and cat people. The thing that really pushed this film from 4 to 5 stars in my rating is how people's responses to the film usually defend the character of their own gender and despise the other one, that means that the movie was able to capture the essence of the war between the gender so men feel that Douglas' character is right while women feel that Turner's character is right; and they usually need to see the film for a second time to realize that both character go beyond the limits.

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