Duplicity

As a writer Tony Gilroy brings wit and intelligence to the thriller genre. Most people will be familiar with his work with the hugely successful Bourne trilogy and 2007’s Michael Clayton which was also his directorial debut. Duplicity shares with those films the love of complexly-plotted, high-tension storylines and the notion of protagonists navigating danger-filled illusory worlds. It is, however, lighter stuff, designed to entertain, although perhaps not all audiences will relish the meta-level cross-referencing required to follow who is doing what to whom.

The film makes two claims on your attention. One is the surface story of high-level corporate skullduggery and the romance that blossoms between undercover agents, Ray and Claire. The approach to the former is parodic, a mocking of a culture which regards fast-food and cosmetics with deadly seriousness. Here Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti deliver wonderfully over-the-top performances of near-psychopathic proportions as the heads of rival corporations. Interwoven with this battle is the relationship between Ray and Claire who are “playing” one side against each other to what they expect will be their mutual benefit.

The story is however but the pretext for Gilroy’s real agenda, which is seeing how many plot twists and turns can one squeeze into a narrative and not completely lose the audience. You will have to work hard here, particularly with a dialogue sequence that gets repeated multiple times in different time frames. The upshot is that the film holds your attention (you simply can’t afford not to pay attention) although towards the end it loses somewhat in the sophistication of its play with some rather obvious set-ups

At either level there is much to enjoy in Duplicity. I can’t say I’m overly familiar with Julia Roberts’ work but she is excellent here. On the one hand her tomboyish persona fits perfectly a character required to mix it with the boys but she also brings to the role the poignancy of a woman who wants to change her life but doesn’t really know if she’s capable of it. You’d have to say that Ray is not a very realistic choice in this respect but equally, Owen gives you plenty of reasons why she wants to believe he is. Although John Huston's Prizzi’s Honor (1985) with Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner as a couple of contract killers who fall in love is my favourite example of this kind of thing, Owen and Roberts make for an engaging screen couple and the implication of a possible Oceans-style sequel in the final scene is not entirely dreadful. You’d actually like to know that these guys were going to make it.

In fine, there are pros and cons with Duplicity and there isn’t much between the two. It is, however, the seasoned performances that make it worth seeing.

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