Having done their take on film noir with The Man Who Wasn’t There, Joel and Ethan Coen then put a modern a spin on another Golden Age genre, namely romcoms that had fun with marriage conventions, often involving Hollywood’s most charismatic stars getting together, cheating, falling out, and getting together again after flirting with other partners. Although Intolerable Cruelty (2003) isn’t a period piece, it shamelessly unearths many of the old tropes for a twisty – and twisted – farce that pits Catherine Zeta-Jones as an irresistible gold-digger against George Clooney as an unbeatable divorce lawyer (with an oral fixation). On the surface, the result may feel more mainstream than usual, but the Coen brothers’ rowdy humor and wordplay are all over the film, along with their penchant for sumptuous aesthetics. Visually and thematically, Intolerable Cruelty emulates classics of the 1950s such as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, but I think the overall tone feels even closer to the wave of screwball comedies in the 1930s about beautiful couples engaged in bouncy battles of the sexes, inside and outside the courtroom.
I suppose I could suggest a more recent romantic black comedy, like the daring The Drama, but I truly think the closest experience to Intolerable Cruelty are the light, snappy, aforementioned 1930s’ comedies of remarriage. The Awful Truth has a well-deserved reputation as the most sophisticated of that lot, but there are plenty of other really good ones, including some with more of an irreverent, Coen-esque edge (Twentieth Century, It’s Love I’m After, Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife). My main pick is Jack Conway’s Libeled Lady, where a newspaper faces libel charges after mistakenly reporting that a wealthy businessman’s daughter had broken up a marriage… and so the paper’s managing editor (Spender Tracy as a crazed workaholic) tries to frame her into actually breaking up a marriage, but of course everyone soon falls in love with the wrong person. This fast-talking, underrated gem has enough sudden weddings, cynical marriages, and discussions over divorce procedures to leave the Coens breathless.
Then again, Zeta-Jones’ man-eater would fit even more comfortably in George Cukor’s masterly written, acted, and directed comedy-drama The Women, from 1939. This one is not so easy to recommend, as it contains some cringeworthy stereotypes, but that’s also part of what makes it so fascinating: it’s a female-centric project (not a single male actor, not even the dogs) steeped in patriarchal values, its approach to gender coming off as both progressive *and* conservative (I wonder what caused a bigger impact at the time?). In that sense, The Women is not entirely unlike Sex and the City – except that in the late ‘30s characters weren’t allowed to swear or openly talk about sex, so they had to rely on witty innuendo delivered at a hilariously quick pace. The film only slows down for a bizarre six-minute fashion show in the middle (in Technicolor, unlike the rest of the movie, presumably to properly show off the clothes). While the large cast showcases multiple feminine perspectives, I doubt The Women would pass the Bechdel test, as everyone spends their time backstabbing each other over men and feeling validated or demeaned because of their relationships. It helps if you see it less like a misogynistic generalization and more like an acidic satire of a specific social milieu… (In any case, I guess Cukor redeemed himself ten years later by directing the proto-feminist courtroom comedy Adam’s Rib.)
Romance used to be one of the most popular genres in comics, back in the 1950s-60s, but it’s rare to find a good example in the 21st century of creators pulling it off without their tongue in their cheek (which is why Love Everlasting doesn’t count). Still, Jamie S. Rich and Megan Levens did just that in 2015, with the charming Ares & Aphrodite: Love Wars, about an idealist divorce lawyer and a pragmatic wedding planner literally betting on the success of the latest Hollywood marriage.
Rather than a campy throwback, this mini-series (published and collected by Oni Press) is a slick, modern comic with smart, unmelodramatic characters, expertly visualized with a grounded yet light touch via Levens’ delightful art and clear compositions. The overall sweetness may seem more in line with your average Meg Ryan vehicle than with the Coen brothers’ rambunctious work, but this still feels like an appropriate companion piece to Intolerable Cruelty, as it’s a fun tale with sparkling dialogue set in pretty much the same world of LA revolving-door marriages.