The Coen brothers are famous for movies like The Big Lebowski, and to a lesser extent, Burn After Reading, which subvert classic film genre formulas. The set ups for these movies look very much like they are going to follow certain formulas of the genres to which they seem to belong, but then eventually throw it out the window. The Big Lebowski seems from it’s outset to be a twist on a Raymond Chandler style hard boiled detective story, swapping the detective for the Dude, a lazy stoner who gets involved in a seemingly complicated caper. Unlike the hard boiled detective story though, the plot of The Big Lebowski ultimately winds up being a humorous and intentional mess of mistaken identities, coincidences and errors that really don’t end up being the usual plot of the caper. Burn After Reading likewise seems to start of as a sort of espionage caper, where it seems CIA documents are mistakenly leaked, and blackmail and intrigue ensues. But again the plot goes out the window with the realization that they are not CIA secrets, but the memoirs of an unhinged ex employee of the CIA. Both of those movies playfully subvert the norms of the genres they appear to belong to, and I put forth that the Coens have done the same thing with their romantic comedy Intolerable Cruelty.
Intolerable Cruelty has all the markings of a romantic comedy, two attractive leads on the poster, George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones, who we can safely assume will end up together at the end of the movie. But they aren’t what you would consider traditionally likable or relatable. George Clooney’s Miles Massey is a very successful and shallow divorce lawyer who is at the top of his field but is somewhat bored with his life outside of work. He is against the whole institution of marriage and the idea of love at the beginning of the movie and has no qualms doing anything it takes to win. Catherine Zeta-Jones’s character, Marylin Hamilton Rexroth Doyle Massey, marries very wealthy men she knows will be unfaithful in order to divorce them and take half of their assets. Evidently, with all of those last names she is at least somewhat successful. Surely two characters as shallow and devious as these two deserve each other.
In the traditional romantic comedy, the two romantic leads first encounter each other in a “meet cute” scenario, which is usually intended to be a playful and charming scene that shows off hints of their potential chemistry, or how they seemingly don’t get along at first because of the whole opposites attract narrative. Intolerable Cruelty does not give us the traditional “meet cute”. Instead Miles and Marylin first meet during a divorce settlement meeting where Miles is representing Marilyn’s soon to be first ex husband of the movie, Rex Rexroth. Miles affronts Marylin’s lawyer Freddy during the negotiation by acting outraged by the demands of Marylin and Freddy. There isn’t much in the way of interaction between Miles and Marylin in the meeting, nothing really to give away their eventual romantic chemistry.
Even though Miles and Marylin are visibly attracted to one another, most of the plot of Intolerable Cruelty is centered around each of them trying to outsmart, out maneuver and get back at the other. Miles successfully exposes Marylin’s true intentions in court during her divorce hearing to get half of Rexroth’s assets. Marylin in turn comes up with a ploy months later to convince Miles she is going to marry another man, with the ultimate goal of marrying and divorcing Miles in order to get half of HIS assets as revenge. They don’t spend quality time getting to know each other, laughing, sharing cute moments, no meatball scenes from Lady and the Tramp. They really don’t spend much time together in the movie at all where they aren’t trying to get the best of one another. Their eventual love for one another comes more from a recognition that this worthy adversary is as shallow and devious as they themselves and that they are so similar.
Intolerable Cruelty playfully subverts the tropes of the romantic comedy genre in the same ways that The Big Lebowski and Burn After Reading subvert the detective and espionage genres respectively. The Coen brothers and writers and directors know how to play with audience expectations and have fun with it. In Intolerable Cruelty they give us two romantic leads who are shallow, devious, not particularly relatable, yet are somehow charming in their own quirky ways. They don’t spend much quality time getting to know each other and they really don’t learn to be better people, or anything that romantic comedies usually try to do. The Coens give us two fairly despicable characters who fall in love because they recognize they are similar and don’t give us much in the way of character development, and dammit is it refreshing, fun and entertaining.