Intolerable Cruelty (2003)

This is the first time the Coen's usually clever comedic tones didn't sit well with me. I get what they were going for, but it missed the mark for me completely.

George Clooney plays a hot winning divorce lawyer who gets involved with a deceiving gold digger (Catherine Zeta Jones) who marries him to make a fortune in the divorce, resulting in plain, cheesy, goofball comedic misfortune.

I normally enjoy the Coen's full blown comedies with Hudsucker Proxy, O Brother, Where art Thou?, and Raising Arizona, but this just went too far in my mind. It overdoes the slapstick, overdoes the zaniness of the characters, and overdoes the absurdity of the situation to the point where we can't take it seriously or get invested anymore because you made us care more about guys getting kicked around by cartoon sound effects than to care about our characters. Even for those who love goofball comedies, and is a sucker for Coen brother absurdity, it's still by far one of their weaker films. The storytelling is simply not that intriguing, the characters are extremely clichéd, followed by extremely clichéd romantic pieces, and it gives us no reason to stay together. The one positive thing I guess is that George Clooney and Catherine Jones are decent, despite not being that interesting of characters. Aside from that, I didn't hate it, but it's quite an uninteresting, uninspired bore fest with nothing new to offer.

Fmovies: Intolerable cruelty is possibly the best written romantic comedy of the modern era. The script writers deserve much credit for this under rated flick, as do Clooney and Zeta-Jones, who turn out their best performances since the turn of the century.

On first viewing this movie can appear just another average comedy with a few names but nothing special. Its what I thought. I even tuned out for some period. But on my repeated viewing I picked up all the delicate intricacies and humour. I now cannot watch this film without feeling happy, it changes my mood. It has a brilliant balance of legal proceedings, meaningless humour, character revealing humour, trait development whilst raising some unavoidable issues about American divorce proceedings. I highly rate this film and ask viewers to relax and enjoy the humour but also pay close attention to the twists and turns.

Also, I recommend Intolerable Cruelty to the education department as it is ideal for students to study and analyse. It will keep them interested and allow them understand character development at its best, whilst giving them an insight into divorce law.

Miles Massey (George Clooney) is a divorce attorney whose clientele consists primarily of the rich and powerful in the Los Angeles area. He's well known for an "ironclad" prenuptial agreement named after him and also known for taking his clients' spouses to the cleaners. But when he works his magic against Marilyn Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones), he may have picked on the wrong person.

I didn't find Intolerable Cruelty very funny. I might have chuckled a couple times. The dialogue was mostly affected and pretentious to my ears. The story wasn't very interesting to me. I really couldn't get myself to care what happened to Miles or Marilyn. I've liked most of writers/directors Joel and Ethan Coen's previous films, but Intolerable Cruelty seemed to me to have little of the inventiveness and cleverness of their past efforts. I have also liked most of the past films that George Clooney, Billy Bob Thornton and Geoffrey Rush have been in, but here they seemed to be turning in just okay performances for bad material. Heck, I even loved Clooney's turn at Batman (1997's Batman & Robin), Thornton's portrayal of a rocket scientist in Armageddon (1998), and Geoffrey Rush's eccentric millionaire in House on Haunted Hill (1999), but Intolerable Cruelty just didn't work for me.

Still, I can't say the film was a complete failure. I'm giving it a 6 out of 10, which is equivalent to a "D" in my way of looking at ratings. The performances might have been just okay, but they were okay, not awful. The Coens managed some interesting shots, such as Rush through the windshield of his car, where we mostly see a reflection of trees. That was unusual, and effectively conveyed the heat and brightness of a summer day the way a more traditional shot wouldn't have. The opening scene had promise to me. The Wheezy Joe subplot was fun. The slight suggestions of surrealism in Miles' boss were very enjoyable, although on the other hand, I found myself lamenting that surrealism wasn't the focus of the whole film.

Glancing at other reviews, obviously the film worked for some people. Maybe if you're more in the market for a realist drama cum light farce about divorce lawyers, you'd appreciate it more than I did. But for me, it has me rethinking my desire to collect all of the Coen brothers' films on DVD.

Intolerable Cruelty fmovies. I had been slightly disappointed with the Coens' previous *The Man Who Wasn't There* -- it was, in my judgment, their first non-masterpiece since their apprentice-work *Blood Simple*. While all their films are self-consciously derivative, *Wasn't There* was derivative without the wit (though brilliantly filmed and acted regardless).

*Intolerable Cruelty* is a return to a less fussy Coen style. It's lean, mean, to the point, no wasted scenes. And it's very witty, featuring dialogue and references that have clearly sailed over the average idiot's head, as well as the fairweather Coen Brothers fan's head. Joel and Ethan remind us here that a mainstream IDEA for a movie is not equivalent to a STUPID idea for a movie. The movie mixes wild slapstick with delicious bon mots. There's always something going on. And the picture looks fantastic (another triumph for DP Roger Deakins), showing us a shimmering, sunlit paradise of an almost mythical Los Angeles. The leads, George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones, are also shot to advantage: neither have looked better, and Zeta Jones in particular practically sucks your breath away every time she appears in a different Rodeo Drive confection. Yowza!

The film failed, as almost all Coen Brothers' movies fail, at the box office because, while delightful and funny, it's also ICE-COLD. The filmmakers, as they always do, distance us from the characters, inviting us to contemplate them rather than to get emotionally involved with them. This is a formula for box-office disaster, especially for romantic comedy. The women-demographic who came expecting a chick-flick were turned off cold, and the guys stayed away, anyway. Coen Brothers "fans" once again proved to be a fickle bunch, lambasting the film as too "mainstream" while utterly failing to get the subtext. These are the same "fans", by the way, who avoided *Lebowski* and *Hudsucker* and *Barton Fink* because it was too "excessive" and/or "weird". Make up your minds, fairweathers. In any case, I'll be one of the "I-Told-You-Sos" when, a decade hence, *Intolerable Cruelty* will be regarded as one of the few intelligent romantic comedies made in recent times.

Let me put it this way: if you think a movie in which the two romantic leads put a contract on each other is too "mainstream", you've revealed yourself as a poseur who should leave the amateur reviewing to the grown-ups. Have a nice day.

I don't see why many hated this movie. I thought the Coen Brothers look at divorce court lawyers' lives in this comedy with a twist was actually pretty interesting. Thte script was first-rate, they sure can write, the direction was interesting for the most part, although film did lose intensity at parts. I thought the acting was great, especially George Clooney who i liked a lot in the lead, he was perfectly casted for this role. Zeta Jones was decent, she pulled off her role, although she still isn't a first-rate actress in my eyes. I thought Rush and Billy Bob Thornton were great in their supporting roles. Cedric the entertainer was wasted here. The film was decent, some good acting, script, decent direction, and nice atmosphere. 8/10

A surprisingly smart comedy from Joel and Ethan Cohen, INTOLERABLE CRUELTY is a deft and entertaining comedy about the relationship that develops between a fast talking attorney (George Clooney) and a man-eating gold digger (Catherine Zeta-Jones)who pretty much eats husbands for lunch. This delightful throwback to the Tracy-Hepburn, Grant-Russell comedies of the 30's and 40's moves at a nice pace and is anchored by a razor sharp performance by Clooney, who has rarely been more appealing on screen. Clooney does everything right here and his performance alone makes this film worth seeing, but Zeta-Jones never allows herself to be overshadowed by him in one of her more venomous characterizations. Worthwhile bits are also contributed by Geoffrey Rush, Billy Bob Thornton, Richard Jenkins, and Edward Herrmann. One of the most underrated comedies ever made which is a definite must-see for Clooney fans.