Intolerable Cruelty has been in the works for nearly eight years. “Luckily,” says screenwriter / director Joel Coen with regard to the age old subject of the battle of the sexes, “the material is timeless.”
“Yes,” agrees screenwriter / producer Ethan Coen, “I don’t think the eight years made much of a difference.” The initial project had begun life quite separately from the Coens, who found the concept interesting and who gave it their signature once over.
“We originally did it as a writing job for Universal and it languished at the studio for a while,” explains Joel about the long delay from page to screen. “Then it came back to us about a year ago and George Clooney expressed some interest in doing it. It was that combination that got us interested in directing it ourselves.”
As for the story and the setting, “at face value it’s a comedy about lawyers,” explains Joel. “Los Angeles and the culture of L.A. and Beverly Hills are a significant part of the idea or the comedy.”
“Like a lot of screwball comedies, it’s about rich people,” continues Ethan, “so not just in terms of photography but in terms of set dressing, wardrobe, every aspect, it’s all very high-end.”
The fact that it’s a star-driven “Hollywood” comedy might be seen as somewhat of a departure for Joel and Ethan, whose previous work includes Palme d’Or-winning Barton Fink, the Academy Award®-winning dark comedy Fargo and the Academy Award- nominated O Brother, Where Art Thou?.
But for Oscar-winning producer Brian Grazer, responsible for such comedy hits as Parenthood, The Nutty Professor and Liar Liar, it represented an irresistible opportunity to put a slightly left-of-center spin on the kind of big, star-driven comedy he’s done so successfully in the past.
Grazer explains, “Joel and Ethan are the coolest, purest filmmakers in modern movies. Here you have a romantic comedy with these mainstream movie stars. And then you add the Coens’ irreverence—and it’s their irreverence injected into this romance that makes the whole journey very sexy and very unpredictable.”
“It’s more of a ‘glam’ thing than certainly we’ve ever done before,” adds Ethan. “For us, it’s trying something a little bit different but I wouldn’t call it unique exactly,” adds Joel.
Despite surface appearances, both Catherine Zeta-Jones (who stars as Marylin Rexroth) and Geoffrey Rush (who plays TV producer Donovan Donaly) see it as a film with a distinct Coen brothers’ touch.
“There’s a dark humor,” comments Zeta-Jones. “They’re masters of that and I think it’s just inherent in their filmmaking and in their writing.”
“With each film they make, they invite you to visit another planet,” says Rush, “but you kind of know that each planet is in the Coen brothers solar system.”
About this latest addition to their solar system, Rush continues, “You know in reading it that it’s a fairly brilliantly constructed script, because they take you into the world hard at the beginning—it’s laugh-out-loud funny on page two. Not many pieces of writing can do that.”
The introduction of Hollywood glamour is not the only departure for Joel and Ethan on this project. Usually known for casting from a stable of returning actors, the circumstances of this script also dictated that the casting process be a bit out of the ordinary.
Including veteran producer Grazer, who comments, “Joel and Ethan are brilliant at so many things, particularly the fine art of casting. It was one of my life goals to get George Clooney in a movie, and I think the chemistry between George and Catherine couldn’t be more perfect. And they brought in these other great Oscar-winning performers, Geoffrey Rush and Billy Bob Thornton.”
Although it wasn’t written for him, the part of Miles Massey seemed a natural for George Clooney. In the traditional romantic comedy style, he walks the line between romantic lead and comedic lead.
“George decided that his character is a descendent of the guy Everett McGill he played in O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” says Ethan. “He’s kind of glib and taken with himself.”
“Everett was all about hair,” observes Clooney in comparing the two characters. “Miles—he’s all about teeth. So he’s always getting his teeth cleaned and checking his teeth—which made me laugh a lot.”
Catherine Zeta-Jones was chosen to play Clooney’s leading lady, the multi-faceted Marylin. Says Clooney of his co-star, “She is exactly that. She is a leading lady. She’s stunning and she just lights up a room.”
“He brings a fantastic energy,” Zeta-Jones replies about Clooney and his on-screen presence, “a suave attitude that is completely irresistible. And more than anything, I think the chemistry between me and George worked from the beginning.”
As for the characters of Miles and Marylin, “They’re romantics,” observes Clooney, “and they sort of get together because of mutual distrust.” “From the moment these two people meet,” adds Zeta-Jones, “they’re on different sides of this wall, but there is an anticipation that these people have to get together.”
“Each wants to outdo the other, and it lends itself to a wonderful banter that goes on between them,” explains Zeta-Jones about the fast-paced comic exchanges of dialogue between their characters. “That’s what’s attractive in this cat-and-mouse game that goes on with them.”
As for her own character of Marylin, the serene beauty who is unlucky in love, Zeta-Jones sees her as somewhat oblivious to the effect she has on the people she comes in contact with, thereby setting the stage for comic mayhem.
“She has no idea how much havoc she creates around her,” she explains. “Marylin just goes on day-to-day dealing with business and doesn’t realize this hurricane that follows her.”
With the lead actor and actress in place, the job of filling in the ensemble of lawyers, friends and adversaries began.
One of Miles’ victims in court is Donovan Donaly, a down-on-his-luck TV producer who loses everything to his unfaithful wife in their divorce settlement—more due to Miles’ in-court prowess than through any fault of his own.
Directed by: Joel Coen
Starring: George Clooney, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Geoffrey Rush, Billy Bob Thornton, Cedrick the Entertainer, Kristin Datillo
Screenplay by: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Robert Ramsey
Production Design by: Leslie McDonald
Cinematography by: Roger Deakins
Film Editing by: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Costume Design by: Mary Zophres
Set Decoration by: Nancy Haigh
Music by: Carter Burwell
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual content, language, brief violence.
Studio: Universal Pictures
Release Date: October 10, 2003
