Review: Intolerable Cruelty (***)

INTOLERABLE CRUELTY
A film review by Steve Rhodes

Copyright 2003 Steve Rhodes

RATING (0 TO ****): ***


The good news about INTOLERABLE CRUELTY, a classic screwball comedy from
Joel and Ethan Coen, can be summed up in two names: Clooney and Zeta-Jones.
These two big stars use their charismatic personalities to maximum effect,
and the chemistry between them is dazzling. But the Coen brothers are
hit-and-miss filmmakers with wonderfully engaging films like FARGO and DOA
ditties like O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? In INTOLERABLE CRUELTY, they get
maximum mileages from their two leads, but the rest of the cast mostly just
wastes our time. The best example of this is the opening sequence, which
features Geoffrey Rush in an embarrassing bit of buffoonery that would have
been better left on the cutting room floor.



The best news is that Clooney and Zeta-Jones do get plenty of screen time to
demonstrate their comedic talents. George Clooney plays Miles Massey, a
wildly successful divorcee attorney who has gotten bored with his adult
toys, including his permanent tab at the Mercedes dealer. He is a super
suave guy, completely in love with himself, whose favorite pastime is
admiring his snow white teeth. His prenuptial agreements are so famously
ironclad that Harvard Law teaches a class about them.



Just as ambitious as Miles is Marylin Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones), a gold
digger who likes marrying really rich, really dumb guys whom she can divorce
before their first anniversary, preferably their first monthly anniversary.
But she's a woman with strict standards. As she explains to a bevy of Botox
beauties, who are nominally her girlfriends, she only takes "one husband at
a time." She doesn't start dallying until the current one is divorced.



Both Clooney and Zeta-Jones are given simple lines that they deliver so
deliciously that they set some sort of gold standard. It's too bad that the
rest of the movie is never as good as some of these small moments, many of
which appear in the trailers. "I assume you're a carnivore?" Miles says to
Marylin after ordering steak for her without asking. "You have no idea,"
she replies quietly and innocently, but with a devilish grin. Miles best
moment comes when he looks longingly as Marylin walks away, saying, "You
fascinate me," after she is probably just out of hearing range. The line is
nothing special. It is Clooney's reading of it that makes it shine.
Marylin's best moment comes after Miles finds out that she named her dog
after the ex-husband whom she fleeced. "I'm sentimental," she explains with
her signature, wicked little smile.



I'm sentimental too. I like a good Coen brothers' picture. Part of this
one fills the bill, just enough to be able to recommend it.



INTOLERABLE CRUELTY runs 1:40. It is rated PG-13 for "sexual content,
language and brief violence" and would be acceptable for kids around 11 and
up.



My son Jeffrey, age 14, had mixed feelings about the movie and gave it **
1/2. He liked Clooney and Zeta-Jones's romantic comedy parts but thought
the rest of the story was too often weird. He remarked that some scenes,
particularly those featuring a tubed up octogenarian, looked like they
belonged in another movie entirely.



The film is playing in nationwide release now in the United States. In the
Silicon Valley, it is showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and
the Camera Cinemas.



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