George Clooney Intolerable Cruelty Cast

Catherine Zeta-Jones as a ruthless gold-digger, George Clooney as a venal divorce lawyer - a match made in heaven or hell? With the Coen brothers at the helm, Intolerable Cruelty will probably be a little of both and a whole lot more.

After their noir-fused existential barber movie The Man Who Wasn't There, the Coen brothers return with Intolerable Cruelty, a typically pitch black comedy that delves into the cut-throat Beverly Hills marriage scene, where wedlock is the ultimate financial investment, gold-digging spouses are blessed with Machiavellian cunning and divorce lawyers rule.

Clooney stars as one such lawyer, Miles Massey, a high-powered attorney at the top of his game who nevertheless finds himself vaguely dissatisfied with his life and work. After framing the wife of a wealthy client to save the husband from a costly divorce settlement, his life goes into turnaround when the spurned woman, the beautiful-but-manipulative Marylin Rexroth (Zeta-Jones), vows revenge and seduces him into marrying her. As an act of faith he does so without insisting on one of his famed iron-clad pre-nuptial agreements. The moment he realises what an act of lunacy this is he embarks on an increasingly extreme course of action to protect his suddenly vulnerable assets. But all is not what it seems and Marylin's plans to take him to the cleaners soon get complicated by other unforeseen developments.

Although this sounds like a set-up for a standard Hollywood rom-com (one in which true love wins in the end), don't expect anything so predictable from the Coens. As they've proven on numerous occasions before, they're masters of subverting genres and populate their films with characters steeped in deception whose motives are often devious and obscure. This usually makes for some wonderfully rich supporting turns and Intolerable Cruelty comes stuffed with train fetishists, celebrity-seeking private eyes, asthmatic hitmen, and a reportedly scene-stealing cameo from Billy Bob Thornton as a Texas oilman targeted by Marylin as potential husband material.

A typical Coen brothers film then (if such a thing exists), except Intolerable Cruelty didn't actually start out as one. Written by Matthew Stone and John Romano, the film had been circulating Hollywood for several years. Ron Howard developed it during its early stages and, at one point, it was mooted as a vehicle for Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. (They opted for Runaway Bride instead). Jonathan Demme came close to making it in 2000, with Hugh Grant, Tia Leoni and Will Smith all in talks to star, but he left to work on the forthcoming Charade remake, The Truth About Charlie.

The Coens first got involved during this protracted development period. Initially hired to do a script rewrite to infuse the story with their dark, offbeat wit, Universal hired them to direct and produce when their attempts to make To The White Sea with Brad Pitt collapsed. Clooney signed on soon after (the trio had been itching to work with each other again after the immensely successful O Brother Where Art Thou?) and shooting got underway in July 2002, once Clooney had wrapped up Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind.

Budgeted at $60 million, Intolerable Cruelty is the Coen's biggest film to date. They'll be counting on Clooney's box-office cache to pull in the crowds, especially since The Man Who Wasn't There rapidly became The Audience That Wasn't There. The fact that the film will be Zeta-Jones' first post-Oscar release won't hurt either. Nor will her marriage to Michael Douglas. Expect plenty of cynical column inches speculating on her own ascendancy in the Hollywood hierarchy, but just remember: she's only acting the gold digger here.

Cast and Crew

Directed by

Joel Coen

Ethan Coen

Writing credits (WGA)

Robert Ramsey, Matthew Stone, John Romano Ethan Coen & Joel Coen

Taglines

Engage the enemy.

A romantic comedy with bite.

They can't keep their hands off each others assets.

Cast

George Clooney .... Miles Massey

Catherine Zeta-Jones .... Marylin Rexroth

Geoffrey Rush .... Donovan Donnelly

Jessica Slating .... Smile Bright Technician

Cedric the Entertainer .... Gus Petch

Edward Herrmann .... Rex Rexroth

Richard Jenkins .... Freddy Bender

Billy Bob Thornton .... Howard Doyle

Paul Adelstein .... Wrigley

Julia Duffy .... Sara Sorkin

Produced by

John Cameron .... co-producer

Ethan Coen .... producer

Sean Daniel .... executive producer

Robert Graf .... associate producer

Brian Grazer .... producer

Grant Heslov .... co-producer

James Jacks .... executive producer

James Whitaker .... co-producer

Original Music

Carter Burwell

Cinematography

Roger Deakins

Film Editing

Ethan Coen(as Roderick Jaynes)

Joel Coen (as Roderick Jaynes)