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Intolerable Cruelty

2003 film by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 5, 2026
Entity authorityQ750117
Source-derived summary

Intolerable Cruelty is a 2003 American romantic comedy film directed, co-written and edited by Joel and Ethan Coen, and produced by Brian Grazer and the Coens. The script was written by Robert Ramsey, Matthew Stone, and Ethan and Joel Coen, with the latter writing the last draft of the screenplay. The film stars George Clooney, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Geoffrey Rush, Cedric the Entertainer, Edward Herrmann, Paul Adelstein, Richard Jenkins, and Billy Bob Thornton.

Intolerable Cruelty premiered at the 60th Venice International Film Festival on September 2, 2003, and was released in the United States by Universal Pictures on October 10, 2003. The film received positive reviews from critics and grossed $120.8 million against a $60 million budget.

Plot

Donovan Donaly, a TV soap opera producer, walks in on his wife Bonnie being intimate with an ex-boyfriend. He files for divorce, and she hires Miles Massey, a top divorce attorney and the inventor of the "Massey pre-nup", a completely foolproof prenuptial agreement. Miles wins a large property settlement against Donaly, leaving him broke.

Meanwhile, private investigator Gus Petch tails the wealthy and married Rex Rexroth on a drunken night out with a blonde. When they stop at a motel, he catches their tryst on video.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Intolerable Cruelty” is 2003 film by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Intolerable, Cruelty and film, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2003—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—2003-01-01, 2003-10-23—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. For this dossier, Intolerable, Cruelty and film is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “2003 film by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q750117. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2003.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Intolerable Cruelty”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Intolerable Cruelty primary sources, Intolerable Cruelty archive and Intolerable research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Intolerable Cruelty”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Intolerable Cruelty” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.