Duplicity Review
Duplicity is written and directed by Tony Gilroy, who also directed and wrote the almost undeniably good but somewhat slow Michael Clayton.
I personally was lucky enough to interview Gilroy in person before he hit it big with Clayton and found him to be a pretty nice guy. And I’ve also enjoyed the Bourne movies, which he has written on.
Also Todd McCarthy of Variety gave Duplicity probably the most glowing review I’ve ever read of his, and I’ve been reading him fairly regularly for at least a year now.
So I was somewhat predisposed to like this movie.
It stars Clive Owen (what a pleasure to see him actually smile) and Julia Roberts, and features the great Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson. Owen and Roberts play corporate spys gradually falling in love, Giamatti and Wilkinson their feuding bosses.
The movie is filled with sharp, highly verbose dialogue, which is somewhat of a specialty for Gilroy.
But whereas in the Bourne films and Clayton Gilroy has been very serious he lightens up considerably in Duplicity. It’s kinda like a fun version of Michael Clayton.
One thing though I think has been in Gilroy’s films that I’ve seen (The Bourne films, Clayton) is a level of emotional detachment. The guy is so smart and his characters so coldly intelligent it’s sometimes hard to connect to them as people.
Now in Duplicity there’s plenty of lovin going on between Owen and Roberts, but the emotional detachment issue remains. And it’s actually a much bigger problem than it has been in the other Gilroy films I mentioned above.
In Bourne the pacing and action held the narrative’s gas pedal down, keeping attention. And Damon’s cold, almost personality-free spy was unusual for the genre and therefore interesting.
In Clayton a few key moments of character development accomplished a great deal, Karen Crowder sweating in a toilet stall, Michael awed by the sight of horses, these moments helped the viewer connect emotionally to some degree.
But the problem with Duplicity, which is a romance, is we don’t see the progression of the romance clearly. Owen and Roberts’ characters are so busy conning everyone and each other we don’t know if they’re serious about their affection for one another (something the characters overtly comment on).
Also Gilroy has scrambled the film’s chronology, but with a purpose somewhat tough to grasp. A certain key jump back in time towards the end was likely a necessity, but the others may not have been.
The effect of the film’s mixed up time frame is to rob the viewer of a sense of where Owen’s and Robert’s relationship is as they watch. You don’t get the sense of a growing romance as you usually would in a romance film. Because of that we don’t really care about the characters, which is death for just about any movie.
So despite Gilroy’s ample talent both as a writer and director, and a pretty stellar third act which surprises and proves to be a lot of fun (it almost saves the picture) this movie drags badly through its middle section.
Honestly, if Gilroy had just played it straight and saved just a few of those jumps in time, to be used sparingly, this could have been a great movie. But as is, it just doesn’t play as smooth as it clearly wants to.
My favorite thing Clive Owen says
You’ve seen it in the trailer, “You’re gamin me!” Owen is so thoroughly imprinted on my mind as this gruff character from films like Children of Men, Shoot Em Up, Inside Man, and Sin City it’s almost cute seeing him lighten up.
Possibly the best part of the movie
The slow-mo throwdown between shameless corporate bosses Giamatti and Wilkinson in the beginning of the film.
Running Joke
All this spying and sneakiness is often over innocuous household products, like frozen pizza (Owen has a monologue about the development of a new type of it) and the like.
-Dan Benamor