Written by Vickie
October 20, 2010
Wow. This was bad. A muddled, choppy and often extremely boring mess. I’m not sure what happened or where along the filmmaking track this one completely derailed but...yikes.
The “story” – and I use the term loosely because there isn’t really one – finds a successful divorce attorney (George Clooney) butting heads with, and eventually falling for, a gold-digging woman (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who marries wealthy men just so she can divorce them and land hefty alimony settlements.
And...that’s about it. Now, you’d think that would be a simple enough premise to execute, but no. Not here. I’ve narrowed down my issues into four categories:
1. Casting. Admittedly, both Clooney and Zeta-Jones are strong screen presences who have each met with measured success in past films. He’s a lovable goofball and she’s a sexy siren, but together? Yawn. Geoffrey Rush is wasted in a stupid supporting role that’s so small it might as well be a cameo, and Billy Bob Thornton provides only momentary amusement because, despite what the ads would have you believe, he’s onscreen for maybe ten minutes total. The only mildly bright spot was Julia Duffy, as a hoity-toity Hollywood wife who comes off like a cheap imitation of Megan Mullally’s Karen Walker character from Will & Grace.
2. Screenplay. There are four writers credited with the story, and four writers credited with the screenplay. Only two of them worked on both. There’s such a thing as too many cooks spoiling the soup and maybe that’s what happened here. The film is less like a cohesive story than a series of vignettes sprinkled over what seems to be a two-year (?) period in the lives of the characters. There’s no real build-up to the War of the Roses-esque, back-and-forth battle between the two leads, whose one-upping of each other feels forced and completely scripted. It’s almost like there are huge chunks of the script (and the movie) that were lost in a fire somewhere, and that those missing sections would have strengthened what’s now a jumbled collection of unrelated moments. There’s no momentum. It’s all starts and stops. Then the screen fades to black and, wait, now it’s suddenly six months later. Huh? As such, the “payoff” (as it were) ending is a dud. By that point, I didn’t care *what* happened, I just wanted it all to be over.
3. Direction. This is a Joel Cohen-directed film. Joel Coen, people! But I’m not sure what he was trying to pull off this time, because half the time the movie is like a slapstick farce and the rest of the time it’s like a run-of-the-mill romantic comedy. The pacing is weird, the performances inconsistent (which, to be fair, may be the fault of the performers) and the tone is all over the map.
4. Me. Yes, I’ll admit it. Me. I wasn’t really looking forward to Intolerable Cruelty because its trailers did nothing to pique my interest. So, I went in with lowered expectations. Now, having said that, usually my lowered expectations mean that a film has nowhere to go but up. Not this time. At the same time, maybe I’m being a little harder on it than I would have been if I’d sat down in the theater expecting to be amazed. Who knows.
Overall, save your money. Resist the urge to see the Coen brothers’ new movie. If you absolutely must see it, wait for video. Trust me.
