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Rating: 9 years after Mister Hula Hop, the Coen brothers once again embrace the path of Hollywood cinema. Unlike that first encounter, the directors are no longer young promises but established filmmakers, with a twenty-year career free of slip-ups. An important difference in the modus operandi lies in the production of the work: the plot of Intolerable Cruelty (terrifying adaptation of the original Prima ti Sposo, poi ti Rovino) was sketched out by Robert Ramsey and Matt Stone in the '90s. Only later did the Coens put their hands on the plot, giving it their typical touch. For the first time in their careers, this is a film "accepted" rather than "proposed" to the majors, with unfortunately not up to par results with their previous works.
At the core of the film is the endless battle between the sexes and the perverse mechanism of prenuptial agreements, enacted by women desirous only of money and independence and matrimonial lawyers whose sole purpose is to swindle their clients. Miles Massey (George Clooney) is a successful lawyer, famous for his invalidatable prenuptial agreements. He unexpectedly and successfully defends a client from the lawsuit filed by his ex-wife, Marylin Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones more beautiful than skilled but not out of place in the role of the man-eater). He is struck by the woman's charm and personality, seemingly reciprocated..
Miles and Marylin are very similar: both ambitious, even if with different goals, they fear that once their goals are reached, they will be alone and live an empty life. Making these hypotheses concrete are Marylin's best friend, a woman who has become immensely wealthy thanks to numerous millionaire divorces but died alone, and Miles' boss, an old decrepit and gutless man only interested in company statistics.
As usual, the self-ironic vein of the directors references their previous works: if George Clooney in O Brother, Where Art Thou? was obsessed with hair gel, in this film he is obsessed with dental hygiene, and Billy Bob Thornton, unlike The Man Who Wasn't There, never stops talking.
The plot is very simple, the film has a good pace and flows quite well, the actors are all up to the task (there are small parts also for Billy Bob Thornton and Geoffrey Rush) but the directors' class alone is not enough to save the film's fate; their black humor is effective in outlining the meanness and hypocrisy of the American upper class, but everything is toned down in excessive sentimentality and in a syrupy and too predictable ending. Some scenes are undoubtedly hilarious (the film's beginning, the trial, Joe Whistle) but even more than Mister Hula Hop, the film lacks depth and results in being "just" a good movie, a minor work in the Coen filmography, although certainly superior to the typical comedies that Hollywood has been churning out lately.
SCORE = 6.5
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