Opening

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Intolerable Cruelty (2003)

tomatometer

75

Average Rating: 6.7/10
Reviews Counted: 179
Fresh: 134 | Rotten: 45

Though more mainstream than other Coen films, there are still funny oddball touches, and Clooney and Zeta-Jones sizzle like old-time movie stars.

77

Average Rating: 6.8/10
Critic Reviews: 44
Fresh: 34 | Rotten: 10

Though more mainstream than other Coen films, there are still funny oddball touches, and Clooney and Zeta-Jones sizzle like old-time movie stars.

audience

44

liked it
Average Rating: 2.9/5
User Ratings: 64,900

My Rating

Movie Info

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

PG-13,

Comedy, Romance

Robert Ramsey, Matthew Stone, Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

Feb 10, 2004

$35.1M

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Cast

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All Critics (183) | Top Critics (44) | Fresh (138) | Rotten (48) | DVD (24)

Here's an anomaly: a comedy about smart people.

October 13, 2009 Full Review Source: TIME Magazine
TIME Magazine
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The Coens do an efficient job of stamping their signature grotesquerie on sumptuous Beverly Hills and Las Vegas settings and ladling on gallows humor and malice, sometimes with the verve of early Robert Zemeckis.

November 7, 2007 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | Comments (3)
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Inventive and hilarious.

February 9, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out
Time Out
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The Coen Brothers do provide enough of a diversion with bits and pieces of wacko casting, and with the deranged details of dress and makeup of their fleeting gargoyles, to make the proceedings at least moderately amusing.

October 23, 2003 Full Review Source: New York Observer
New York Observer
Top Critic IconTop Critic

This dim-witted, mean-spirited and brain-dead calamity should surprise no one.

October 16, 2003 Full Review Source: New York Observer
New York Observer
Top Critic IconTop Critic

[T]here's a lot of problems with the script, and some of the stuff with Edward Herrmann I don't think works at all, it's not funny it just kind of falls flat. But Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones, I think they deliver enough to say it's worth seeing.

October 13, 2003 Full Review Source: Ebert & Roeper
Ebert & Roeper
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Screwball comedy for older teens and adults.

December 24, 2010 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media
Common Sense Media

A competent bit of work from which striking originality and idiosyncrasy have mostly been pruned away.

May 6, 2008 Full Review Source: Style Weekly (Richmond, VA)

This is the Coens dabbling in the mainstream, and bending it to their will.

September 24, 2007 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com
eFilmCritic.com

A conventional Hollywood comedy boasting a bolder indie heart, the film essentially combines the worst of both worlds.

September 7, 2007
Long Island Press

The Coensâ(TM) first mainstream romantic comedy is a superb hijacking of an ailing art form -- short, sharp and frequently laugh-out-loud hilarious.

December 30, 2006 Full Review Source: Empire Magazine
Empire Magazine

As Miles, Clooney doesn't make any direct emotional appeal to the audience and yet his high style is so smashingly effective that Miles stands open to us: macher, lover, patsy.

September 26, 2006 Full Review Source: Blogcritics.org
Blogcritics.org

Destined to rank among the Coens' least memorable achievements.

December 6, 2005 Full Review Source: Film Threat
Film Threat

A great movie.

December 6, 2005 Full Review Source: Film Threat
Film Threat

A fun romp, thanks largely to the deft work of its two leads.

March 5, 2005 Full Review Source: NYC Film Critic
NYC Film Critic

[Ce film] est tout ce que l'on ne veut pas voir les Coen faire dans leur futur, mais aussi le genre de comédie romantique que l'on souhaiterait voir plus souvent.

December 16, 2004

The script is whip-smart. The Coens come closer to the zaniness of their greatest comedy, Raising Arizona, then they have in all of their movies since then.

December 6, 2004 Full Review Source: Looking Closer
Looking Closer

Despite the inconsistent script and low tone, this has many funny moments. If you can forget the negative view it takes of mankind, itâ(TM)s entertaining because of the performances of Clooney, Zeta Jones, and the rest of the cast.

October 7, 2004 Full Review Source: tonymedley.com

The Coens ... have taken a typically trite target for ridicule and splayed it out for an attack from outer space, where Coen brothers scripts tend to originate.

September 20, 2004
Tyler Morning Telegraph (Texas)

Audience Reviews for Intolerable Cruelty

One of the Coen's worst but still enough of thier humor and wit to entertain.
March 28, 2012
Graham Jones

Super Reviewer

Sometimes filmmakers just want to have fun and make a movie, and that's all The Coen Brothers are really doing here. "Intolerable Cruelty" is light, farcical comedy. The satire feels contrite but it's the dialogue and wacky performances from the game cast (namely Clooney and Zeta-Jones) that make a viewing worthwhile. Marginally better than "Burn After Reading" for having just a tad more substance but "Intolerable Cruelty" is still one of the Coen's lesser works.
April 16, 2011
stevenecarrier
Steven Carrier

Super Reviewer

    1. Gus Petch: I'm gonna nail your ass!
    – Submitted by Brendan C (5 months ago)
    1. Gus Petch: Yep, I nailed his ass.
    – Submitted by Brendan C (5 months ago)
    1. Miles Massey: You are a carnivore?
    2. Marylin Rexroth: [laughing] Oh, Mr. Massey. You have *no* *idea*.
    – Submitted by Jane M (18 months ago)
    1. Miles Massey: Do we council fear or trust? Do we seek to destroy or build?
    – Submitted by Tomas K (19 months ago)

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Foreign Titles

  • Ein (un)möglicher Härtefall (DE)
  • Intolérable cruauté (FR)
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