neumu [ cinematronic ]




	Intolerable Cruelty
	Joel Coen George Clooney, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Geoffrey Rush, Billy Bob Thornton, Cedric the Entertainer, Edward Herrmann, Richard Jenkins 2003		With "Intolerable Cruelty," the Coen Brothers — droll, intellectually agile filmmakers behind "Fargo," "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" and other delights — roll out an elevated brand of big-screen sitcom that is, like some of their other efforts, influenced by screwball comedies of the '30s and '40s, especially those directed by Preston Sturges and Howard Hawks. "Intolerable Cruelty" isn't as funny and fresh as the best of Sturges or Hawks, but it does have the timeless movie-star quality of its leads, George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones, to charge it. Clooney, heir to suave leading men of yore Cary Grant and Clark Gable, is callous, successful L.A. divorce lawyer Miles Massey. The beautiful Zeta-Jones, who evokes the glamorous sensuality of Rita Hayworth, is fortune-hunting Hollywood wife Marilyn Rexroth. Aided by evidence gathered by a bellicose detective (Cedric the Entertainer), Marilyn plans to fleece her rich, philandering husband (Edward Herrmann) in court, but Miles is handling the defense. In this intermittently amusing battle-of-the-sexes, the inevitable attraction between Miles and Marilyn leads to a truce — ripe to be broken. With assiduous on-screen support from Geoffrey Rush and Billy Bob Thornton.