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Overall Rating
 Awesome: 8.64%
Worth A Look: 32.1%
Average: 28.4%
Pretty Bad: 13.58%
Total Crap: 17.28%
6 reviews, 45 user ratings
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| Intolerable Cruelty |
by Elaine Perrone
"That a Coen film would be 'just tolerable' is terribly disappointing."

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For all its eye-popping color and style, Intolerable Cruelty still comes off looking like a beautifully turned out mannequin, gorgeous but lifeless, missing the Coens' trademark heart.As landshark attorney Miles Massey and serial man-shark Marylin Rexroth, George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones seem air brushed, and their clever banter studied rather than scintillating.
Everyone seems to be doing a lot of mugging and emoting, but no one seems to be having an especially good time. (Edward Hermann, who plays Marylin's philandering husband Rex Rexroth, is a particularly embarrassing caricature, called upon to ham it up shamelessly.)
Still, any Coen Brothers film is better than no Coen Brothers film, and flashes of their brilliance do shine through.
In a wickedly funny opening sequence, L.A. based Australian TV producer Donavan Donaly (Geoffrey Rush) arrives home to find his wife Bonnie (Stacey Travis) in bed with the pool cleaner, even though their house has no pool. Featuring a recording of Simon & Garfunkel's sublime "The Boxer," the scene holds out the promise of more great things to come. Sadly, it's a promise largely unfulfilled.
Still, it does set the stage for Bonnie to hire Miles, successfully becoming the injured party in her divorce proceedings through the benefit of the "Massey Pre-Nup," a document so ironclad that it has a semester devoted to its study at Harvard.
My favorite scene features the two man-eaters, Marylin and her best friend Sarah Sorkin (Julia Duffy), lolling around a pool discussing divorce strategy while, in the background, Edith Piaf warbles "Non, Je ne regrette rien."
Unfortunately, there are precious few of those wonderful moments. It may well be that too many writers (there were two, besides the Coens) simply spoiled the broth. I have every hope that getting back to the basics of writing and directing their own work without outside interference will put Ethan and Joel back on track.On the plus side, the film is a beauty, thanks to the breathtaking (as always) cinematography of Roger Deakins, the knockout sets and glamorous costumes -- particularly Zeta-Jones' ravishing wardrobe -- and the physical splendor of the two leads themselves. For all it's visual brilliance, though, the movie is pretty much All Dressed Up with Nowhere to Go.
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link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=8243&reviewer=376 originally posted: 07/23/04 12:53:20
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USA 10-Oct-2003 (PG-13) DVD: 10-Feb-2004
UK N/A
Australia 23-Oct-2003
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