director
Joel Coen
screenwriters
Robert
Ramsey
Matthew Stone
Ethan Coen
Joel Coen
story by
Robert
Ramsey
Matthew Stone
John Romano
producers
Ethan Coen
Brian Grazer
music
Carter Burwell
cinematographer
Roger Deakins
editors
"Roderick Jaynes" (the Coens)
cast
George Clooney (Miles Massey)
Catherine Zeta-Jones (Marylin Rexroth)
Geoffrey Rush (Donovan Donaly)
Cedric the Entertainer (Gus Petch)
Edward Herrmann (Rex Rexroth)
Paul Adelstein (Wrigley)
Richard Jenkins (Freddy Bender)
Billy Bob Thornton (Howard D. Doyle)
Julia Duffy (Sarah Sorkin)
Jonathan Hadary (Heinz)
Stacey Travis (Bonnie Donaly)
Irwin Keyes (Wheezy Joe)
Bruce Campbell (Soap Opera Actor)
mpaa rating: PG-13
running
time: 100m
u.s.
release: October 10,
2003
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
official
website
other coen
bros. films
reviewed on this website:
- barton
fink
- the
big lebowski
- blood
simple
- fargo
- the
hudsucker proxy
- the
ladykillers
- the
man who wasn't there
- miller's
crossing
- o
brother, where art thou?
- raising
arizona
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Intolerable Cruelty is about two sharks falling for each
other, but not after shedding some blood first. This is fine
screwball material for Joel and Ethan Coen, who dusted off a
script by Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone and ran with it. The
result isn't as organic a Coen film as their others, but it earns
its place in their portfolio as a comic essay on the follies
of love, trust, and the illusion of control. Don't make too much
of the fact that the material didn't originate with them (it
never stopped anyone from liking any of their other movies that
owed their structures to Hammett, Chandler, Homer, etc.), or
that Brian Grazer produced it (Joel Silver bankrolled The Hudsucker
Proxy -- what's your point?). This isn't a whole
lot like any previous Coen film, but none of their previous films
are much like each other, either. When approaching a new Coen
effort, it's wise to leave your expectations at the door. This
is the Coens dabbling in the mainstream, and bending it to their
will.
Teaming for the second time
with the Coens, George Clooney enters the picture teeth-first
-- literally. As Miles Massey, an egotistical divorce lawyer
who prides himself on winning big settlements for irredeemable
clients, Clooney gives full rein to the old-school suavity that
links him to the movie stars of an earlier age. Yet Miles is
essentially a fool, with a nagging fear that there must be more
to life than obscene wealth. Perhaps love is what's missing --
but Miles sees the wreckage of love every day; not only that,
he profits handsomely from it. He can't see himself with a trophy
wife, or with a sweet, trusting woman with a fraction of his
smarts. So when he meets professional divorcée Marylin
Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones), he's undone. Marylin is in the
process of extricating herself from an idiotic real-estate tycoon
(Edward Herrmann, having fun being randy); she looks forward
to the "independence and freedom" that her ex's wealth
will bring her. We sense that it's not just about freedom for
her, though; it's more about the thrill of the hunt. Zeta-Jones,
as usual, slinks into each scene with the confidence of a woman
who knows she can make men sit up and beg.
The Coens don't sully Marylin's
glamour -- they need it to keep the machine rolling. Miles is
infatuated with her as a package -- beauty plus a diabolical
sense of male weakness. He's been looking for a challenge, and
she's it. They both know all the tricks, and the Coens' unequalled
skill with dialogue comes out in the verbal sparring between
the two. At heart, this is a classic Coen film, obsessed with
crime -- the glee of getting away with something. By the time
attempted murder enters the plot, we recognize that it's the
logical extension of the characters' ruthlessness. These are
not nice people, though they're softened by a sort of wistful
awareness that kindness might exist out there, somewhere.
With the possible exception
of Paul Adelstein as Wrigley, Miles' mushy-hearted assistant
(who bawls at weddings), everyone in the movie is circling the
drain of ambition. We meet Gus Petch (Cedric the Entertainer),
whose specialty is catching wandering spouses in flagrante
delicto on his camcorder; and Geoffrey Rush in a farcical
turn as a TV producer with brass taste; and Julia Duffy as Marylin's
mummified divorcée friend, with a 46-room mansion and
a bleeding ulcer; and especially Billy Bob Thornton enjoying
himself to the hilt as a naïve oil billionaire who becomes
the next patsy on Marylin's list. These actors perform in shorthand,
functioning as satellites on the margins of the divorce universe,
where Miles and Marylin are god and goddess. Eventually, the
Coens break away from the swank atmosphere and give us such oddities
as a quickie Scottish wedding performed in kilts and a hit man
named Wheezy Joe. I wonder if what bothers some Coen fans about
Intolerable Cruelty is that, unlike most of their films
(which either stay lowlife or mix lowlife and the elite), it
stays pretty much elite for most of the movie, and the main characters
are comfortable there.
Miles, for one, is getting
uncomfortable there, and he has a change of heart, though the
Coens have the wit to satirize it as the smitten grandstanding
it is. Soon enough, Miles is back in the moral grime, and the
plot twists and double-crosses come fast and heavy. Much of Intolerable
Cruelty will reward multiple viewings; lately, the Coens
haven't been making movies that even their longtime fans will
instantly embrace -- not everyone dug O
Brother, Where Art Thou?, for instance, or The
Man Who Wasn't There. And for their next polarizing trick,
the brothers are remaking an acknowledged British classic and
casting Tom Hanks in the lead (The
Ladykillers). Never let it be said that the Coens are
content to rest on their laurels, or averse to risk. At its core,
Intolerable Cruelty is an anti-romantic comedy, in which,
even if the leads wind up together, we're not sure they're meant
for each other, even if they do deserve each other.
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