Intolerable Cruelty

George Clooney Director: Joel Coen Joel Coen

Overview

Joel and Ethan Coen take on the classic battle-of-the-sexes screwball comedy with Intolerable Cruelty. George Clooney plays Miles Massey, a high-powered Los Angeles divorce lawyer nearing a midlife crisis. While representing wealthy client Rex Rexroth (Edward Herrmann), Miles meets his match in Rex's gold-digging wife, Marilyn Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones). He's impressed by her similarly heartless ways of using marriage to fuel an expensive lifestyle, but he still defeats her in court. With Marilyn looking to get her revenge and Miles finding himself attracted to her, the two engage in a ruthless romantic pursuit to out-swindle each other. Billy Bob Thornton shows up in a small role as Texas oil tycoon Howard Doyle.

Product Details

Release Date:	06/04/2019
UPC:	0191329091401
Original Release:	2003
Rating:	PG-13
Source:	Universal
Time:	1:40:00
Sales rank:	17,301

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

George Clooney	Miles Massey
Catherine Zeta-Jones	Marylin Rexroth
Geoffrey Rush	Donovan Donnelly
Cedric the Entertainer	Gus Petch
Edward Herrmann	Rex Rexroth
Richard Jenkins	Freddy Bender
Billy Bob Thornton	Howard Doyle
Paul Adelstein	Wrigley
Julia Duffy	Sara Sorkin
Stacey Travis	Bonnie Donovan
Jack Kyle	Ollie Olerud
Jonathan Hadary	Heinz, the Baron Krauss von Espy
Irwin Keyes	Wheezy Joe
John Bliss	Mr. MacKinnon
Mia Cottet	Ramona Barcelona
Kristin Datillo	Actor
Tom Aldredge	Herb Myerson
Camille Anderson	Santa Fe Tart
Royce D. Applegate	Mr. Gutman
Kitana Baker	Santa Fe Tart
Andre Rosey Brown	Gus's Pal
Blake Clark	Convention Secretary
Booth Colman	Gutman Trial Judge
Kristin Dattilo-Hayward	Rex's Young Woman
Judith Drake	Mrs. Gutman
Sean Fenton	Bailiff
Doug Fisher	Maitre D'
Mary Gillis	Court Reporter
Mary Pat Gleason	Nero's Waitress
Emma Harrison	Santa Fe Tart
George Ives	Mrs. Gutman's Lawyer
Wendle Josepher	Miles' Receptionist
Colin Linden	Father Scott
Kate Luyben	Santa Fe Tart
Bridget Marquardt	Santa Fe Tart
Gary Marshal	Las Vegas Waiter
Patrick Thomas O'Brien	Bailiff
Isabell Monk	Judge Marva Munson
Julie Osburn	Stewardess
Ken Sagoes	Gus's Pal
Nicholas Shaffer	Waiter
Tamie Sheffield	Santa Fe Tart
Allan Trautman	Convention Lawyer
Dale E. Turner	Gus's Pal
Kiersten Warren	Claire O'Mara
Carter Burwell	Conductor

Technical Credits

Joel Coen

Ethan Coen

Robert Ramsey

Matthew Stone

Joel Coen	Director,Screenwriter
Jean A. Black	Makeup
Patti Brand	Makeup
Carter Burwell	Score Composer
John Cameron	Co-producer
Ellen Chenoweth	Casting
Ethan Coen	Producer,Screenwriter
Sean Daniel	Executive Producer
Roger Deakins	Cinematographer
David Diliberto	Musical Direction/Supervision
Clint Dougherty	Camera Operator
Jenny Eagan	Costumes/Costume Designer
Diana Edgmon	Costumes/Costume Designer
Jann K. Engel	Set Decoration/Design
Tony Fanning	Art Director
Annie Garrity	Costumes/Costume Designer
Karen Ruth Getchell	Production Manager
Ariel Gold	Costumes/Costume Designer
Robert Graf	Associate Producer
Brian Grazer	Producer
Nancy Haigh	Set Decoration/Design
Grant Heslov	Co-producer
Alix Hester	Costumes/Costume Designer
Lisa Hoyle	Stunts
James Jacks	Executive Producer
Roderick Jaynes	Editor
Betsy Magruder	Asst. Director
Leslie McDonald	Production Designer
Peggy Nichols	Makeup
Betsy Patterson	Special Effects Supervisor
Robert Ramsey	Original Story,Screenwriter
Rhythm & Hues Studios	Special Effects
John Romano	Original Story
Lori Rowbotham	Set Decoration/Design
Andrew Slyder	Costumes/Costume Designer
Matthew Stone	Original Story,Screenwriter
Christine Wada	Costumes/Costume Designer
Eddie Watkins	Stunts
James Whitaker	Co-producer
Cindy Williams	Makeup
Danny Wynands	Stunts
Mary Zophres	Costumes/Costume Designer

Editorial Reviews

Irrepressible brothers Joel and Ethan Coen are at it again, serving up plenty of laughs in an over-the-top farce that echoes Hollywood's sophisticated screwball comedies of the '30s and '40s. Super-slick divorce lawyer Miles Massey (George Clooney) has a well-deserved reputation for painlessly extricating wayward spouses from their marriages after they're caught cheating. But he's stumped by his latest client's glamorous and predatory wife, Marilyn Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who seems to have entered the union secure in the knowledge that her hubby would slip up sooner or later. Miles doesn't want this dishy divorcée to get the better of him, but he doesn't count on succumbing to her considerable charms. Billy Bob Thornton has a small but flashy role as an all-too-trusting Texas millionaire who also becomes one of Marilyn's conquests, with Edward Herrmann and Julia Duffy contributing colorful supporting turns. The Coen brothers have frankly admitted that they set out to emulate classic screwball comedies, and the film's costume designer has said that Massey's suits were patterned after those worn by Cary Grant. But the uniquely twisted Coens are never content simply to walk along well-trod paths, and this film bears the unique Coen stamp in its performances and dialogue. More accessible and mainstream than some of the brothers' other movies, Intolerable Cruelty is guaranteed to provoke sidesplitting howls of laughter, especially from those conversant with such classics as The Awful Truth and His Girl Friday.

Barnes & Noble - Ed Hulse

Intolerable Cruelty feels exactly like what it is, a Coen brothers film that did not originate from the mind of Joel and Ethan. There are turns of phrase that are unmistakably the work of the duo, but the pacing of this story is not as crisp as their other work. There are a handful of quick-paced, snappy, dialogue-laden scenes and, in those sequences, the film takes full flight. George Clooney is inspired as the suave, vain divorce lawyer shark. He is thoroughly unlikable and yet the audience loves him. Clooney is one of the rare stars who is truly unafraid of looking buffoonish. He throws himself into this part; that the film works as well as it does has much to do with his performance. Catherine Zeta-Jones also delivers a strong performance, although her character being more inscrutable than Clooney's makes it difficult for her to connect with the audience in quite the same way. The rest of the cast is pretty much pitch-perfect, with Billy Bob Thornton getting huge laughs in a pair of scene-stealing sequences. Even though the pacing and the quality of the film varies from scene to scene, Intolerable Cruelty deserves credit for being a genuine update of the classic screwball comedy form. The screenplay is good enough, but the actors mine every ounce of quality from it.

All Movie Guide - Perry Seibert

Something not seen in movie theaters for a long time: an intelligent, modern screwball comedy, a minor classic on the order of competent, fast-talking curve balls about deception and greed like Mitchell Leisen's Easy Living and Billy Wilder's Major and the Minor.

New York Times - Elvis Mitchell

Even when the movie sags and strains a bit in Act III, Clooney keeps it flying with old-fashioned movie-star allure. He's got it all: Cary Grant's looks and, inside, Bob Hope's snake-oil-salesman soul.

Time Magazine - Richard Corliss

Hilariously overblown, Cruelty fairly pops at the seams with the beloved eccentricity of Joel and Ethan Coen, from the fiendishly ludicrous scenarios and casually tossed off visual gags to the razor-sharp repartee.

New York Post - Megan Lehman

Elegant, cheerfully cynical fun of the kind we used to get regularly from Billy Wilder, Howard Hawks and other masters of the classic Hollywood screwball comedy -- all those '30s-'40s movies about rich people sloshed, or acting crazy and running romantically amok.

Chicago Tribune - Michael Wilmington

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