Variety says it is even better than Gilroy's previous film, Michael Clayton, full of major achievement throughout:
Duplicity A Universal release presented in association with Relativity Media. Produced by Jennifer Fox, Kerry Orent, Laura Bickford. Executive producer, Ryan Kavanaugh. Co-producers, Christopher Goode, John Gilroy. Directed, written by Tony Gilroy. Camera (Technicolor, Panavision widescreen), Robert Elswit; editor, John Gilroy.
Claire Stenwick - Julia Roberts Ray Koval - Clive Owen Howard Tully - Tom Wilkinson Richard Garsik - Paul Giamatti Jeff Bauer - Tom McCarthy Duke Monahan - Denis O'Hare Pam Frales - Kathleen Chalfant Ned Guston - Wayne Duvall Barbara Bofferd - Carrie Preston Boris Fetyov - Oleg Stefan Dale Raimes - Rick Worthy Dinesh Patel - Khan Baykal Big Swiss Suit - Ulrich Thomsen Ronny Partiz - Christopher Denham
By TODD MCCARTHYAn ultra-sophisticated love story between two corporate spies with pronounced mutual trust issues, "Duplicity" is a brainy, non-violent "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," the film "Intolerable Cruelty" wanted to be, a "Trouble in Paradise" for modern times. Smart, droll and dazzling to look at and listen to, writer-director Tony Gilroy's effervescent, intricately plotted puzzler proves in every way superior to his 2007 success "Michael Clayton." The twisty, time jumping narrative forces viewers to keep on their toes, and it could well be that "Duplicity" is too smart for its own good as far as the popcorn masses are concerned. Still, this is about as good as it gets these days for sharp-minded Hollywood entertainment made for an intelligent audience, and Universal can only hope that Julia Roberts, in an excellent return to leading lady form, still has the B.O. pull to put this one over. Although the depredations of the corporate world again lie at the heart of things for Gilroy, this time he has a lot more fun with them, setting the tone with a slap-happy opening credits sequence backgrounded by two titans of industry (Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti) coming to blows in exaggerated slow motion in front of their respective private jets as aghast entourages look on.
The stakes are very high here in both love and commerce, the participants are all savvy and hold their cards close, and the winners are those who play the deepest game; who they may be Gilroy craftily keeps a mystery until the very end. In the meantime, there is exceptional pleasure to be taken from watching the consummate pros before and behind the camera play such captivating make-believe with such engaging characters.
In a tangy Dubai-set opener that establishes a sexy vibe that never diminishes across two hours, MI6 agent Ray Koval (Clive Owen) insinuates himself into bed with CIA op Claire Stenwick (Roberts). Five years later, in 2008, Ray encounters Claire again in Grand Central Station, but she adamantly insists she doesn't remember him. Over the course of the film, their opening gambit repartee becomes a running gag that assumes different flavors based on the time and place, just one clever invention in a film full of them.
Lured from government work into the far more lucrative world of corporate counter-intelligence, the mutually irresistible lovers plot a scheme by which they will spy for rival firms - Burkett & Randle, headed by Howard Tully (Wilkinson), and Omnikrom, led by Dick Garsik (Giamatti) - and hope to make off with enormously profitable secrets. Triggering such an opportunity is a procured handwritten letter revealing B&R's imminent announcement of a bombshell product guaranteed to generate giant profits. But both its nature and formula must be obtained for the discovery to be any use to either Omnikrom or the two moles.
Claire and Ray understand one another perfectly: They both know neither will ever meet a more suitable match, but they also have every reason not to trust the other; Claire pulls a fast one on Ray on their initial tryst, while Ray, among other deceptions, unsettles Claire by seducing a vulnerable office drone (a terrific Carrie Preston) to procure vital information. Neither wants to be the first to show weakness by uttering an incontrovertible truth, or by confessing love for the other.
All this game playing provides Gilroy with the opportunity to refashion the urbane, snappy repartee of 1930s romantic comedies in a darker, harder edged contemporary context. By pulling off this high-wire act, he shows himself to be one of the few current writers who could possibly have held his own in the august company of his stage-and-newspaper-trained forebears. His dialogue has snap, rhythm and wit, and all the actors in the picture show their appreciation by making it sing or sting, as the occasion requires.
With knowledge no doubt acquired in part while toiling on the three "Bourne" features, Gilroy juices the drama with a dazzling array of surveillance techniques the two companies use to pry into the other's business; whether they're true or not, they're entirely credible in context, as is the unreserved corporate avarice that audiences will more eagerly swallow today than they might have even a year ago.
The screenplay shuffles the chronological deck — the action perpetually shifts to "2 Years Ago," "10 Days Earlier," and so on — in ways that only a complete physical exam could prove to be necessary rather than whimsical. But what the calendar jumbling does accomplish is to provide a nice cyclical pattern to the intimate scenes between the romantic leads, which keeps the sexual heat turned up in the midst of so much devious plotting and derring-do. No matter where in the world the action takes them - settings include Rome, Switzerland, the Bahamas, Miami, London, San Diego and Cleveland in addition to New York and Dubai - Claire and Ray always find a time and place to jump-start their romance, which provides an emotional core to parallel the film's intellectual assessment of corporate mischief.On the surface, "Duplicity" is escapist fare fronted by beautiful stars wearing gorgeous clothes in chic locations made to look extra-alluring by Robert Elswit's shimmering camerawork. But these are routine qualities compared to some of the other levels on which the film excels, most notably in its adroit synthesis of pulsing drama, bright humor, heady romance, unapologetic maturity, zero tolerance for fools and cheeky awareness of its rejiggered conventions.
Reteamed after working together in "Closer" (2004), Roberts and Owen manifest excellent chemistry. An ultra-competent control freak, Claire is a woman almost impossible to surprise or impress, and Roberts' stature feeds into these traits. Her glances and glacial stare-downs rep some of her best moments here, but she's also very good at recalibrating Claire's degree of toughness when Ray demonstrates he can match her at her own game.
As for Owen, this reps a very welcome rebound from the similarly globe-trotting "The International," where he was locked into a state of unrelieved grubbiness and anger. Here, he looks debonair (certain moments suggest what he might have been like as James Bond) and keeps a sensitive finger on his co-star's pulse, which serves to quicken his own.
Aside from Wilkinson and Giamatti, both delicious as kings of industry whose egos and ambitions know no bounds, supporting cast has been adroitly filled out with moderately familiar faces that have the virtue of not popping up several times a year in movies or on TV.
Film's craftsmanship is of the highest level, from Kevin Thompson's production design that complements the locations in evoking many settings and Albert Wolsky's always flattering costume design to a vibrant, nicely spiced score by James Newton Howard. As neither the shooting nor the editing trade in trendy jitters or jumpiness, one wobbly hand-held shot stands out like a black eye. In every respect, "Duplicity" is a film made with total assurance and savoir faire.
Music, James Newton Howard; music supervisor, Brian Ross; production designer, Kevin Thompson; art directors, Stephen Carter, Tamara Marini (Rome); set decorator, George DeTitta Jr.; costume designer, Albert Wolsky; sound (DTS/SDDS/Dolby Digital), Michael Barosky; supervising sound editor, Warren Shaw; re-recording mixers, Michael Barry, Shaw; visual effects, Asylum, Hammerhead, Handmade Digital, Brainstorm Digital special effects coordinators, Jeff Brink, Eddie Droghan; stunt coordinator, Jery Hewit; assistant director, Stephen Apicella; casting, Ellen Chenoweth. Reviewed at Clarity screening room, Beverly Hills, March 12, 2009. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 125 MIN.
This is one film where the posters nor the trailers do anything to prove that it is any good or a must see. I'm pleasently surprised by this rave review for I thought MICHAEL CLAYTON was the best of 2007
Posts: 249 | Location: Manhattan | Registered: October 31, 2008
Hollywood Reporter is favorable, but not as enthusiastic:
Film Review: Duplicity By Kirk Honeycutt, March 16, 2009 02:53 ET
"Duplicity" Bottom Line: Glossy look at corporate espionage makes for cerebral more than emotional fun. In "Michael Clayton," his first outing as a director, veteran screenwriter Tony Gilroy used a thriller format to investigate how skullduggery and deceit can corrupt the souls of individuals who do the dirty work of major corporations. His second film as a writer-director, "Duplicity" -- which could just as easily have been the title of his first film -- covers the same territory and again with a thriller format, only this time the whole thing is so tongue-in-cheek that whatever moral dilemma the characters suffer gets subsumed in an elaborate and satirical con game.
The movie is fun, with plenty of intrigue and suspense that will have audiences clutching at their arm rests. With Julia Roberts and Clive Owen top-billed and a host of terrific character actors led by Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson, the film is poised to play strongly to adults in sophisticated markets. The film is also cool in tone though, holding its characters at a distance, perhaps even shaking its head knowingly at their flaws and foibles.
Gilroy certainly likes a busy canvas with a jumble of time frames and a welter of conflicting motivations. This movie has all the moves and countermoves of an old Cold War spy film, only these spies work as corporate operatives for fiercely competitive pharmaceutical giants. In Hitch****ian terms, the "McGuffin" has changed from secret codes to a Doomsday machine to secret formulas for hair shampoo.
The film begins in 2003, when CIA officer Claire Stenwick (Roberts) and MI6 agent Ray Koval (Owen) have a collision with destiny. At a U.S. embassy party in Dubai, she catches his eye, they slip off to his bedroom, she slips him a mickey and tosses the room, taking with her classified documents. He can't get over her, though it's hard to say whether his sexual infatuation trumps his desire for revenge.
In present day, the duo seems to be caught up in a cold war -- lower case -- between two cutthroat corporate CEOs, Giamatti and Wilkinson, based in Manhattan. Further flashbacks establish that the couple has met again in Rome, rekindled their erotic attraction and maneuvered themselves into positions on either side of this corporate war to double-cross their bosses so they might walk away with enough retirement pay for a lush life outside of espionage.
The only trouble is, they still don't trust each other. Ray sees this as a kind of brutal honesty that places them above normal human beings. Nobody trusts anybody, he assures Claire, we're just willing to cop to that basic fact.
Their con game, which sprawls across locations in Italy, England, the U.S. and the Bahamas, is cleverly plotted by Gilroy, who of course is playing his own con game with the audience: Even as you hope against hope that one lover does not betray the other -- both seem so ready to do so -- you know Gilroy is withholding vital information for a surprise ending.
That final twist will satisfy most viewers, but something is missing at the end. What this is is any sense of what's at stake for the protagonists. To pick an example from the Hitch**** canon, you know Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman are desperately in love in "Notorious" no matter how much deception and duplicity exist between them. You have no idea with Gilroy's spy couple.
Gilroy is truly one of Hollywood's best filmmakers when it comes to story. He can create strong characters and breathtaking situations that throw off extreme tension. But his view of humanity contains enough misanthropic cynicism that human tenderness escapes him.
"Duplicity" enjoys superb production values that add to the exhilaration of the film's rush through the familiar yet still welcome territory of movie espionage twists and turns. Gilroy employs nearly every key crew head who made "Clayton" such a slick and compelling thriller. They might have topped themselves here.
I respected Michael Clayton more than most other films of that year, and certainly out of the nominated Best Picture films of 2007. I guess, we'll see if it's actually better.
Posts: 13901 | Location: canada | Registered: December 22, 2005
Variety, as has been shown before, generally is the most reliable barometer as to what the consensus of reviews will be, so yes, on that level, it is a good sign. They also rarely give such out and out rave reviews. (Variety as a publication has the least variance on average from the median score they give - doesn't mean they aren't off at times, but overall, they are quite close).
Then you throw in the pedigree of the talent in the film, and its likelihood of contending becomes even more obvious.
And we are talking contending for nominations, not contending (at this point) for winning. And I mean several categories - maybe supporting acting more than leads or best picture, but a film that has elements that could be remembered.
So, in answer to your question, yes, at this point, I'd say calling it an early contender is totally fair.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: seanflynn,
The trailer for this looks boring as hell. Unless box-office, word of mouth and reviews are all excellent, I won't be rushing out to see this one. And I like many of the names in this cast.
Unless the review is totally off, this film has all the elements to make Academy members actually go to theatres to see it. It sounds like a perfect film for them, even more so since it comes in a total vacuum.
I can't believe this doesn't seem obvious. Not all Oscar contenders need to come out in the last quarter or have to be pretentious heavy literary downers that sound like obvious Oscar bait.
Review There's far more sarcasm than snogging in a romantic caper that reunites Closer co-stars Julia Roberts and Clive Owen for a combative round of sex, lies and betrayal. It’s also considerably more fun than their previous cinematic encounter. The con that consumes them is a good one. Having retired from their respective intelligence agencies to bankroll a lobe-trotting getaway in sexy luxury, Roberts’ Claire Stenwick and Owen’s Ray Koval get their feet under desks in the counter-intelligence departments — for such things exist, apparently — of two rival multinationals. Her boss is ruthless tycoon Howard Tully (Tom Wilkinson), while Ray’s employer is Tully’s brash nemesis, Dick Garsik (Paul Giamatti). These two captains of industry hate each other’s guts so much, they’ve escalated from public punch-up to financing a business war using paranoia, sleuthing, spyware and dirty tricks to foil each other in a big-money, top-secret product launch.
Writer-director Tony Gilroy ticks all the espionage escapade boxes: good-looking people, designer duds, international scenery (London, Rome, New York, the Bahamas, some place pretending to be Dubai), nifty gadgets (surveillance and code-cracking gizmos, ghosts in machines), the nimble eluding of the tail at major transport hubs, and similarly cool, sneaky stuff he deployed in the Bourne screenplays. There are no parcour or car chases, alas, but there are thongs and Champagne. It’s elegantly, expertly done.
Gilroy has gone full on for a classic caper in the Hitch****ian or Charade line of sophisticated comedy thrillers, and it is smart, slick and full of clever twists, with some witty badinage and good performances down the cast list. But to pull off an unqualified delight it is essential that the stars twinkle. Ever since Cary Grant died that has been the big problem in this genre. Clive Owen is no Cary Grant. Nobody else is either, but you definitely want more playfulness and suavity in your Armani-suited deceivers. Roberts, back after her protracted maternity leave, is also okay but not dazzling. And without giving the game away, the who-has-outsmarted-whom? finish kind of fizzles.
Verdict The chemical combustion just isn’t there between Julia and Clive, and you can’t help wondering if Gilroy wrote this with George Clooney in mind. Still, a glamorous, diverting escapade that over-30s in particular can enjoy.
Reviewer: Angie Errigo
I do not want to disappoint our Japanese public, especially Godzilla. Hahaha! I'm just kidding, I know he doesn't care what humans do.
The only thing this is contending for is a People's choice award for Julia. Im sure the movie is good, but it will be totally forgotten around awards time.
1) Todd McCarthy - who is not just Variety's top critic, but also a film historian and documentary maker - compared this to Trouble in Paradise.
What is Trouble in Paradise? It is to sophisticated romantic comedy what The Godfather is to gangster movies. It is a masterpiece, close to perfection. To think that an American studio could, in 2009, make a movie that a credible critic could mention in the same breath is astonishing to me. It is almost too good to be true.
2) Also, if Oscar is to thrive, it must become once again both a year-round and also a star-driven awards event, not just ghettoized to a limited time period with limited audiences with limited themes. I really, really want an early year, star-driven, studio wide release aimed at adults to be remembered. And I suspect many Academy members will share the feeling.
3) Also, I haven't seen the trailer, and regard that as irrelevant. Trailers today are totally formulaic and mostly tired. They don't capture the essence of many more sophisticated films.
4) And finally, I was a big fan of Tony Gilroy's last film - not as good as There Will Be Blood, but better than the other 2007 nominees.
Me, I'm going to think outside the box and not assume that the same-old formulas and schedules rule. And I suspect I am going to be proven right, again assuming McCarthy's review is not close to the critical consensus.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: seanflynn,
Originally posted by seanflynn: To explain further my hopefulness on this -
1) Todd McCarthy - who is not just Variety's top critic, but also a film historian and documentary maker - compared this to Trouble in Paradise.
To put it bluntly, this comparison is most difficult, nay, impossible, to swallow. And why is this? Ernst Lubitsch died over 60 years ago, and no one has ever replicated his "touch," so let's not kid ourselves. The comparison is spurious.
If you are expecting a knock-down, drag-out fight, forget it, because I agree we both need to see the movie first. However, a synonym for film critic is quote whore, and in this case, your darling Todd McCarthy is clearly putting his reputation at risk.
As a trade paper, Variety is very rarely quoted in ads. Its reviewers don't look for it, the paper doesn't want it, and once again, you are totally off base.
That McCarthy would right such a rapturous opening paragraph is totally out of character, and one of the reasons to get my, and by extension other peoples', attention.
Originally posted by Stinger: I thought Michael Clayton was a total bore. Swinton stole Amy Ryan's oscar.
I have to agree with you. I wasn't as into the film as many other people were, and though I think Tilda Swinton is a great actress, that Oscar deserved to go to Amy Ryan.
2010 Oscars FYC:
Lead Actor - Joseph Gordon-Levitt, (500) Days of Summer Lead Actress - Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds Supporting Actress - Mo'Nique, Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire Original Screenplay - Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber, (500) Days of Summer
Posts: 4920 | Location: Why Do You Want To Know? | Registered: November 21, 2006
