Review: Intolerable Cruelty (2003)

Okay, I'll admit it right off the bat. This film is, very much, an example of "minor" Coen Brothers. The story for the film was actually devised by Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone (no, not that Matt Stone), and was shopped around for several years to directors such as Jonatham Demme and Ron Howard, before the Coen Brothers themselves finally picked up the project, and wrote the last draft of the screenplay. So, in that way, it's true that this film is perhaps the closest they've gotten for doing an entirely "For Hire" project.

But all that being said, the film, to me at least, was still a wild, hilarious, very much self aware ride.

In grand tradition, the Coen's once more take a loving satirical hatchet to some aspect of Americana, this time the polished, self centered world of LA and the divorce lawyers that inhabit it. Summarizing the plot here is rather difficult, since much of the film's charm is in how completely bonkers and tangled up the plot gets, and to spoil that would, in a way, feel unjust. I came into this film more or less blind to what happens, and therefore, I was sideswiped by all manner of gambits, twists and self aware hilarity that ensued.

Make no mistake, this film is by no means subtle, instead gleefully turning every romantic comedy/divorce movie trope up to an eleven and then some, completely with over the top camera work, and performances that make it very plain to us that everybody is having a ton of fun on the project.

George Clooney was born to play the part of the super-slick, Teflon coated and suave to a fault Miles Massey, a smooth talking divorce lawyer and divisor of "The Massey Prenup", a prenuptial agreement so iron clad, that, to quote "they teach it at Harvard". Clooney gleefully hams up the screen, using his own unique and undeniable charisma to make a character that easily could have been seen as incredibly selfish and irritating a hilarious riff on the stereotypical lawyer image. He's got the nice suit, he's got the pearly white teeth, and the ability to magically recall or pull any legal trick out of his metaphorical hat, and yet, when faced with the voluptuous and equally slick and conniving Marylin Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones), he is head over heels in love with her.

Speaking of Zeta-Jones, she plays her part as the gold digging, unscrupulous and sexy Marylin with pitch perfect suaveness and sexiness. A woman who unapologetically marries for money, Marylin sees marriage (and the ensuing divorces) as the modern day version of a big game hunt, and her constant back and forth banter with Clooney is a joy to behold, since both have such great chemistry together. Even their unorthodox romance comes across as uniquely charming, and carries with it a sense of a match made in heaven, as the two are so equally scheming and slick that, in many ways, they were born for each other.

The rest of the cast is all having the time of their lives, from Billy Bob Thornton's comically stereotypical oil man (and Marylin's second husband), to Edward Herrmann as Marylin's philandering first husband, to Richard Jenkins as the in-over-his-head lawyer who just wants to have a normal case, to Paul Adelstein as Clooney's Pollyanna-esque sidekick, to Cedric the Entertainer as the absolutely least subtle private investigator in existence, to even Geoffrey Rush in a hilarious cameo as an over the top Australian TV producer, it's plain that everybody's having fun, and going whole hog on their roles, gleefully hamming it up and just cutting loose, which helps contribute the general aura of giddy, madcap abandonment that runs throughout the film.

Roger Deakins' cinematography amps up the colors, creating an ultra saturated, sun drenched LA that feels appropriately kitschy and plastic, and coupled with Carter Burwell's zany score, helps further enhance the sense of unadulterated wackiness.

So yeah, suffice to say, while this film obviously isn't one of the Coen Brothers' more profound or singular films, it's an unabashedly fun film, and one that doesn't take itself seriously in the slightest. And for that, I can't muster a single gram of hate for it.

I'm a sucker for zany shenanigans I tell you.

5 out of 5 stars.