“When I watch you eat, when I see you asleep… when I look at you lately, I just want to smash your face in.”
synopsis
A seemingly ideal couple builds a beautiful life together — until affection curdles into resentment. As divorce looms, neither is willing to surrender the house they built, turning separation into escalating psychological and physical warfare.
pairs well with ...
mini-review
This one sits right on the knife-edge between comedy and horror. It’s funny — but it’s vicious.
The brilliance is in its exaggeration of what many divorces feel like emotionally: territorial, petty, and fueled by years of unspoken grievances. Douglas and Turner lean into the ugliness without softening it.
It’s stylized, yes. But the emotional core is disturbingly recognizable.
The message is clear: love doesn’t implode overnight. It corrodes.
Dark humor tolerance
Watching with someone who appreciates satire
Not currently being in divorce proceedings
Absurdist's Corner
They build a dream house… and decide mutual destruction is preferable to compromise.
fun facts
Reunited Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, and Danny DeVito after the success of Romancing the Stone and The Jewel of the Nile.
Based on Warren Adler’s novel of the same name.
Danny DeVito both directed the film and played the couple’s lawyer, serving as the story’s framing narrator.
The house used in the film became almost a character itself — the production built much of the interior as a custom set to allow for escalating physical destruction.
The film pushed dark comedy into unusually brutal territory for a mainstream late-80s release.
Its exaggerated marital combat influenced later “battle of the sexes” comedies, though few matched its vicious tone.