BEFORE: When I got divorced back in 1996, my soon-to-be-ex and I used a mediator, instead of battling divorce attorneys. Essentially, we had one lawyer instead of two, and we got to work out the terms of our settlement ourselves. We were presented with a checklist, reminding us about the items that might need dividing up - furs, artwork, cars, a boat - which made us laugh since we had none of those things. I don't think that divorce lawyers are used to seeing people cracking jokes during the process. Anyway, I had written her a check for half of our bank balance, and over the next two years I had to reimburse her for half of what we'd paid into our Brooklyn condo, and that was it. Pretty amicable - so that's my experience going into watching this film.
THE PLOT: A married couple try everything to get each other to leave the house in a vicious divorce battle.
AFTER: Fortunately for me, my first wife and I had something of a verbal agreement, after watching married friends almost break up, that the person who wanted to leave the marriage should also be the one to physically leave the house - and that's the way it shook down. She wanted to leave, so I got to stay in the property. So my take on this film is that the spouse who wanted out should have packed their bags. Instead neither one here is willing to leave the property.
They made most legal points like this ambiguous here - one spouse found the house, the other paid for it. This seemed like a bit of a screenwriting cheat, so that we in the audience wouldn't favor one side over the other. But the resulting ambiguous story ends up suffering for it.
What's also ambiguous is WHY they can't get along - it was really a poor set-up, with little explanation as to how they could genuinely care for each other at one point, and then be at each other's throats - what, exactly, changed? So the husband could be a bit of an a-hole, and occasionally he would interrupt his wife or not pay attention to her - is that grounds for divorce? I'm not sure that the level of contention we see was justified, unless I missed something.
I found them both at fault - but it's worth noting that it was their love of material possessions that turned them into real monsters, not a genuine hatred for each other. Still, this fictional couple gives divorce a bad name. Oddly enough, I didn't find much humor in watching rich people destroy their possessions and try to kill each other. I guess I'm not as sadistic as I thought.
Also, I've got zero sympathy for anyone who hurts an animal, or pretends to hurt an animal. And I don't find it funny when a film includes a joke about someone hurting an animal. I'm not an activist about it, but it's definitely not in good taste.
NITPICK POINT #1: There are a lot of inconsistencies throughout the film - most notably, Mr. Rose's lawyer tells him to establish residency and fight for the house, but in their next meeting, he says "Give up the house." Huh? Why the change in legal strategy? Or was he speaking one time as a lawyer, and another as a friend?
NITPICK POINT #2: Each spouse commits at least a dozen counts of domestic violence - and no one ever calls the police? Why didn't either one of them file charges against the other? A police report would have been useful in the divorce case.
NITPICK POINT #3: The couple's cat and dog are seen living together, presumably peacefully, for years - why did they suddenly stop getting along and chase each other around? Again, poor set-up.
NITPICK POINT #4: The lawyer played by Danny DeVito (last seen in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest") hadn't smoked a cigarette in 13 years - so why did he have a lighter handy?
NITPICK POINT #5: The framing device made no sense - DeVito's character tells the story of the Roses to convince his client to go home and work things out and NOT file for a divorce - then how does he stay in business as a divorce lawyer?
Starring Michael Douglas (last seen in "The In-Laws"), Kathleen Turner (last seen in "Prizzi's Honor"), Sean Astin (last seen in "Rudy"), and Dan Castellaneta (last seen in "Superhero Movie")
RATING: 4 out of 10 Staffordshire hounds
I absolutely failed to understand the motive of this movie. A porno movie knows its audience. Viewers don't care about the characters and they don't care about the story and they don't care about learning anything or finding echoes of their own experiences -- or insights into the universal human experience -- in the movie. They just want to watch people ****.
ReplyDelete"War Of The Roses" is porno. It's made for an audience who just wants to watch people hate each other.
I have the same problems with the "Saw" series. It's for people who just want to watch people suffer.
I don't understand these movies. At all. Thank God.
Indignation aside: if your story requires a framing device in which a narrator sets everything up, explains everything as it's going on, and reveals how everything turned out...you're not ready to tell this story yet.
The Danny DeVito character clearly has The Explainin' Disease. Even when he's there to tell the story of this couple, he can't not linger on details like his smoking habit. Cheap, cheap, cheap.
Andy -
ReplyDeleteThanks for verbalizing my feelings about framing devices, they're almost always a bad idea, or a sign of a weak story. At least this one wasn't as bad as the past/present storylines progressing together non-linearly, or the "splash-page" effect when we're dropped into the action, then the build-up is shown.
With regards to motivation, I think you're on to something - the only demographic this might appeal to is people who've been through a nasty divorce, or people who went through a civil divorce, and feel they should have been nastier. A small target group, and one that neither you or I fit into.
Not that this movie's subject matter and tone are then justified, I don't think that's possible, but they are (moderately) explainable - as in "How did this movie get made?"
Comparing this movie to porn might be an insult to porn, though. Both depict equally unrealistic extremes, but at least some people are entertained by porn.