Shannon: You remember which movie we're doing tonight, right?

Dustin: Yes, we are taking a look at The War of the Roses if I am not mistaken.

Shannon: Whew, glad I watched the right one!

Dustin: Surprisingly, I even managed to make sure it was the Danny DeVito film as opposed to one of those British things with the kings and whatnot.

Shannon: I saw at least one of those titles and wondered.

Dustin: Okay, so the basic rundown of this film (which was based on a novel by Warren Adler) is that Oliver and Barbara Rose -- Michael Douglas and Kathleen Tuner respectively -- fell in love, got married, had some kids, and moved into a beautiful old house that Barbara devotes her life to fixing up. All well and good until -- GASP! The marriage falls apart, and as the divorce proceeds, neither wants to give up the house. So they try to make life as miserable as they can for each other until someone caves.

Shannon: Oddly enough, fighting to the death over a house actually doesn't seem that outlandish to me.

Dustin: I don't see how I could have that kind of connection to real estate.

Shannon: Um, what? Jeez, where was I?

Dustin: See, this is why marriages fall apart... lack of communication.

Shannon: Ha.

Dustin: Hey, I make that remark in jest, but really it's a good case example in this film -- Oliver is so busy being a high powered attorney that he neglects his wife, although he doesn't realize it. She just lets it fester until... boom!

Shannon: The first time I watched The War of the Roses, I had not yet experienced the fingernail-ripping, eyeball-slicing pleasure of a divorce -- so I thought it was just a black comedy (my favorite kind). Now that I have survived one divorce and am staring down the barrel of another one, I see this movie as the horror flick that it is. The film's master of ceremonies, divorce lawyer Gavin D'Amato (DeVito), puts it best: "There's no winning in this. It's only degrees of losing."

Dustin: Yeah, that's a very DeVito line.

Shannon: Both Roses seem to have a part in the marriage's destruction.

Dustin: Yes, they do, although I'd say that Oliver suffers much more through the course of it than she does.

Shannon: The husband is convinced that pouring himself into his career for high status and financial gain is about his devotion to his family. The wife is convinced that pouring herself into perfecting the family's surroundings will earn happiness. I hate to sound sexist, but I wonder if most male viewers would share your take on the film. I wonder if most female viewers would side with Barbara -- even though I really don't think this movie is trying to be a "battle of the sexes."

Dustin: It’s a valid question -- although I'd like to make the point that even until the very end, Oliver is still trying to reconcile because he still loves Barbara whereas she wants nothing to do with it. She's flat out done and ruthless.

Shannon: Yes, she is so done. I really felt that. She stopped caring about their belongings, even.

Dustin: All except the house itself, which really became a matter of principle.

Shannon: The house is a symbol, I think. The movie is ostensibly about materialism. Though the Roses' road to hell may be paved with beautiful things, those things are also symbols. They are emotional mile markers. They have stories behind them and represent shared memories and maybe even the love that has been lost. My take on the movie probably illustrates the broad appeal of the screenplay.

Dustin: Do you think that might be sentimentalizing the plot a little too much? It kind of detracts from the whole "black comedy" aspect.

Shannon: Hmm, "sentimental" isn't a perspective I can quite get behind. What I see reflected in the movie is based on my own experiences. Someone who hasn't been divorced or someone looking through gender traditionalist eyes will view the movie differently. I think I'm trying to get to an explanation of why a divorcing couple would fight so hard over material things.

Dustin: That's very true, and I do have to keep that in mind (although my parents are divorced, so I've been through it from that angle). So even with the separate points of view, we agree that the plot of the film is sound?

Shannon: I would agree with that, yes. I'm very impressed that the producer fought to keep the ending, as The War of the Roses has one of the best endings of any movie ever. Some might call it overly dramatic, but the ending really drives that blade home.

Dustin: No question with that -- oh, this is a great moment to mention something I absolutely didn't want to let get by -- the story is told in flashback by DeVito's character as he counsels a potential divorce client. His client is played by Dan Castellaneta (the voice of Homer Simpson), who doesn't say a single word throughout the course of the movie. I thought that was worth mentioning for the novelty of it.

Shannon: For me, the narration/lesson by D'Amato is where I would accuse the film of sentimentality.

Dustin: Okay, I can see that. Although, he is using it like that to discourage the client from getting a divorce.

Shannon: When Castellaneta's character walked out the door at the end, supposedly to go home and try to reconcile with the wife (right?), it felt a little smarmy to me. One of my favorite lines is, "A civilized divorce is a contradiction in terms." At least the divorce lawyer doesn't claim that staying together is all peaches and roses. He looks up to his parents for staying together for 63 years and says that "a few of them were good."

Dustin: Care to say anything about the performances by Douglas and Turner?

Shannon: The performances were perfect. They worked together like the gears of watch.

Dustin: I totally agree, we have some great examples of actors at work here -- I think Turner gets downright scary at times, although I kind of have that feeling about her to begin with, maybe.

Shannon: Yes, she is heat one minute and ice the next.

Dustin: It's now also tainted with the thought of, "That's Chandler Bing's dad."

Shannon: I surely wish I could lay a sharp retort on ya’, but I ain't got no idea what yer talkin' about.

Dustin: Sorry, I just kind of assumed that everyone in the universe would get a Friends reference. Anyone alive in the 90s, at any rate.

Shannon: Well, there you have it. I wasn't alive in the 90s.

Dustin: Kathleen Tuner plays Chandler’s transsexual father. Which is brilliant, and even funnier when she acts with Morgan Fairchild playing his mother.

Shannon: I was mostly dead.

Dustin: Well, that's mysterious to me, but we'll leave it on the table. The work of Douglas and Turner work really throws the acting of the rest of the cast into pretty sharp relief, though. Only DeVito can really claim to hold his own acting wise amidst that.

Shannon: Just to clarify.

Dustin: Again, on the table.

Shannon: Yes, on the table, mostly dead. Were you there?

Dustin: What? No, I was watching Friends.

Shannon: So, did you personally identify with anything in the movie? It strikes me that people can view this story from many perspectives, colored by their own experiences.

Dustin: I didn't identify with much of it on that kind of level. I was still more or less gleefully enjoying the dreadfulness of their actions.

Shannon: You enjoyed that part? You weren't squirmy through, say, the dinner party scene with the fish?

Dustin: The way that one perhaps would enjoy seeing a forest full of squirrels and bears catch on fire. Please, I've worked in the food service industry, so that didn't scare me that much.

Shannon: I guess my focus was on the sheer humiliation of it. Less on the urine, which, as someone who usually lives with lots of animals, didn't scare me that much, either.

Dustin: Any final thoughts?

Shannon: No more commingling of assets for me, baby.

Dustin: Live and learn.

Shannon: I still can't over enjoying the idea of bears catching on fire... Yet I'm the one who identified with the hostility in this movie.

Dustin: That makes me want to review The Great Outdoors now.

Shannon: You are strange.