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This film walks a fine line between dark comedy and brutal tragedy. Director Danny DeVito plays the film’s narrator Gavin D’Amato, a sleazy lawyer who tells a client about the Roses as a cautionary tale regarding divorce.

Oliver (Michael Douglas, WALL STREET) and Barbara Rose (Kathleen Turner, BODY HEAT) at first had a magic relationship. But as Oliver got more successful and Barbara got more restless with her role as a housewife their marriage begins to fall apart. The film wisely understands how little things grow into bigger things in relationships, especially when the couple can’t talk about the issues or cannot see the other person’s point of view.

The film also has a wicked sense of understanding regarding how men and women handle conflict. In some of the film’s more vicious moments, the dialogue is played so close to the bone that the laughs are tainted with painful truth. The film is subtle and honest. What’s so interesting is how one’s sympathy changes from moment to moment. One moment you like Barbara and the next you like Oliver. They’re both flawed and vindictive people, so you never feel that one is truly more in the right than the other. It’s fascinating to watch them start out with a war of words, which eventually moves into physical violence. Douglas and Turner handle the material perfectly. They both seem born to play roles like these.

It will make you laugh. It will make you squirm. It will make you thankful for the person you married… at least I hope so.