Intolerable Cruelty (2003)

People are voting emotionally.

How sad is this?

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Intolerable Cruelty2 Out Of 5Intolerable Cruelty is merely an attempt by Coen to offer a rom-com in its own tone that unfortunately never communicates with the audience. The scrutiny in here is so obvious and predictably dull that the audience finds themselves waiting for the makers to attain a closure that makes its 100 minutes feel like ages especially when the makers and the audience are sweating to be funny and to crack a smile respectively. It is short on technical aspects like background score, sound department and editing. An urge to create the sketchy comic sequences and somehow managing to create the intense drama along with it, fails on all levels here. The script is all distraction and nothing concrete on terms of the material offered to the audience, addition to that it derails quickly into a misleading lane and crashes in its self-created ideology and hypocrisy. It comes off as a shock considering it came from Joel Coen, since it barely has an piece of craft to explore in here especially the forcibly installed humor which clearly isn't funny. It is poorly performed by George Clooney and Catherine Zeta Jones, but then they weren't offered enough range to sink their teeth in their one dimensional characters. Intolerable Cruelty is an overstuffed and undercooked on its plot and characters, leaving the audience disappointed rather than being angry.

A very naïve and undeveloped story, acceptable only by a 13-year-old girl. Would it have killed them to work on the plot for another year making it more believable, more entertaining?The acting isn't that good either, so don't be fooled by the names. Catherine Zeta Jones is awful, not that hot and her acting reminded me of the fart smelling technique of Joey Tribbiani's. George Clooney is OK; I loved Billy Bob Thornton though.For a black comedy it's neither that black nor that funny; and not worth watching at all.

Well, yes, it's a Coens movie, so a certain level of quality is always there, but this latest viewing of this romcom wasn't an undiluted pleasure.First off, how would any society 'gal' be able to hire an actor who is well known for his role in a soap opera and not somehow get caught in the public eye (and subsequently, get caught by Miles)? Then there's the loads of boring dialogues between the 'desperate housewives' which are only very occasionally funny ("Down the wrong pipe.").And, finally, this back and forth and up and down routine between Miles and Marylin (check out all the alliterations, by the way: Ollie Olerud, Rex Rexroth, Miles Massey, etc.) may be very well played by both George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones on a comedy level, but it never becomes credible - a sort of slapstick romance, in which the romance gets pretty much lost. So, all I could do was enjoy the fine acting (check the supporting roles by Paul Adelstein and Tom Aldredge), some funny jokes, the fine cinematography and a lot of fun music. Altogether, that's not such a bad result.6 out of 10.

This is a comedy and nothing else, but a comedy about the worst tragedy imaginable: the exploitation of marriage by social climbing women who marry rich men only to divorce them later with a very comfortable alimony or settlement, or even more and worse than that: a fully naked stripping court order, the type of court order in which you have to borrow a bath towel from the concierge or plain night warden to be able to run to your taxi without being arrested.Imagine one of the best divorce attorneys in the field who destroys the claim of one of these ladies in court by demonstrating, one key witness in the stand, that the lady is nothing but a marriage bounty huntress, and then there he is falling in love with her, marrying her on a whim, with the best pre-nup contract you can imagine, tearing it up just after the wedding, confronting her for the divorce and falling in love again in the confrontation in the lawyer's office and this time she destroys the pre-nup.Don't try to see anything subtle or deep in that. Love is unpredictable and no one can live forever without love, even someone as cold as the iceberg that sank the Titanic or as calculating as a world class chess player. But I must say it is so funny to see all divorce procedures, out of court or in court, ridiculed and being made fun of. It is true that's what they deserve. But even so, man, marriage is a sacred institution, isn't it?But do not try to have nightmares on such a film. That is absolutely impossible.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU