YMMV / The War of the Roses

• Accidental Aesop: It doesn't matter how much you may love someone: if someone makes it clear they can't stand you, cut ties with them rather than prolong something that isn't working out. If Oliver had been willing to let go of Barbara, he would've been a lot better off.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Dan Castellaneta’s role in the movie is a character who doesn’t speak. Within a few years of playing Homer Simpson, he would be well-known because of his voice.
  • Dan Castellaneta plays the client of Danny DeVito's character in the film. A few years later DeVito would voice Homer's half-brother Herb.
• Nightmare Fuel: For anyone that just started a married relationship and is afraid about their marriage not working out and falling apart nastily.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Sean Astin plays the Rose's 17 year-old, college bound son.
  • Dan Castellaneta plays the client of Gavin D'Amato who silently listens as his lawyer tells the story of the Rose divorce.
• Squick: Oliver peeing on the fish course.
• Tear Jerker: As terrible as they were and even though everything that happened was entirely their own doing, it's still sad watching the Roses going from a young couple who love each other dearly and who end up getting nearly everything they want to hating each other and destroying everything they have, even themselves.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic:
  • Oliver veers into this. While he is controlling and demeaning and just as pigheaded as Barbara, he maintains some degree of love and empathy for her, while Barbara, even in an early state, maintains a sociopathic and vindictive disinterest in anything but maintaining her house and image. That obvious reasons insist that he is pretty much always on the losing end against Barbara only exacerbates this. Not to mention the fact that Barbara arguably escalated the conflict from "merely" a loveless marriage falling apart to an increasingly violent, toxic feud by insisting that everything be given to her after their divorce based off of a letter he hastily scribbled when he thought he was dying of a heart attack.
    • That said, his refusal to leave the house and constant denial that she can't stand him is what drives Barbara over the edge and does a number on her mental health.
  • The line was in fact drawn during the climax. Originally Barbara was to have genuinely killed and served Oliver his dog out of spite, leading Oliver to snap but still be comically overpowered. Test audiences found this scene unsettlingly callous, leading Barbara to be rewritten as bluffing and adding a shot of the dog outside alive and well.
• The Woobie: Oliver's and Barbara's teenage kids. Put yourself in their shoes and imagine witnessing your parents' marriage not simply falling apart before your eyes but their escalating conflict that eventually becomes outright physical violence. And in the end, both of them are left orphaned.