Duplicity

Director: Tony Gilroy
Cast: Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson
DVD release: 22 July 2009
Rated: PG

Double take

Tony Gilroy is fast becoming one of my new favourite directors. There’s a touch of the Steven Soderbergh (whom he counts as a friend incidentally) about his cool, intricate and insightful films. This is the follow-up to his directorial debut in Michael Clayton – a film that I’m convinced will come to be regarded as one of the great moments of the American cinema from the current decade – and there’s a touch of the Soderbergh here too. For if Michael Clayton was his Traffic, then Duplicity is his Ocean’s Eleven.

Yes, Gilroy has taken his writing and directing skills into the realm of caper comedy; albeit an intelligent and understated one. Duplicity actually probably also has something in common with another Soderbergh film, Out of Sight, in its depiction of two romantically attracted people involved in a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse. He however doesn’t stray too far from the corporate world he depicted so successfully in Michael Clayton.

As you’d expect from a writer with Gilroy’s pedigree, the script is a cracker. Using a non-linear structure that jumps back and forth in time, he crafts a tale of industrial espionage and double-dealing. The really clever thing about the film comes as a sting in its tale. Just when you think you know where the film is going, Gilroy pulls the rug from under your feet and produces an ending as unexpected as it is subversive.

Our heroes Claire Stenwick (Julia Roberts) and Ray Koval (Clive Owen) meet at a 4th of July party in Dubai in 2003. She’s CIA, he’s MI6 – can there really be any other outcome than them falling into bed together. Things however don’t work out quite the way Ray intended, as he awakes to find he’s been drugged and Claire has made off with some sensitive air defence documents he had acquired. Fast forward five years, and the pair find themselves thrown together again. He’s been recently hired by a company called Equikrom to bolster their security team. She’s at rival corporation Burkett Randle in a similar role – but she’s been placed there by Equikrom as a mole. When Claire stumbles across an important document from Burkett Randle CEO Howard Tully (Tom Wilkinson), she needs to get information of an impending big announcement to her “real” employers. With Ray as her handler and maverick Equikrom CEO Dick Garsik (Paul Giamatti) breathing down everyone’s necks, the pressure is on to overcome past differences and deliver on what could be the bioscience find of the century.

It will come as little surprise to learn that all is not as it seems. Gilroy takes us on a witty, wry and sometimes slightly surreal journey through the world of corporate espionage; a world in which a better pizza can mean the difference between unimaginable wealth or bankruptcy.

While Duplicity is a comedy and very funny in parts, don’t come to this expecting Jim Carrey style slapstick. The humour is quite understated, so even when the funnier lines are delivered, they’re likely to provoke a smirk rather than a giggle. In keeping with the style Gilroy established in his earlier film, you’re also going to need to pay careful attention to what’s going on. The fractured timelines demand attention, but so long as you’re even mildly engaged, you shouldn’t have too much problem.

Julia Roberts and Clive Owen have pretty good chemistry as the pair of spies, although the nature of this type of film is that the relationship story has to share space with the thriller elements. Both seem perfectly at ease with each other, although some of their interactions with other characters are less elegant. Paul Giamatti is once more excellent as the highly strung Garsik. Indeed, he and Tom Wilkinson provide the backdrop for one of the more memorable titles sequences in recent memory at the start of the film. For his part, Wilkinson is also good as the unflappable Tully; although he doesn’t get a lot of screen time and I would have liked to have seen more of him.

Duplicity may not be quite up to the standards of Michael Clayton but hey, the bar was set very high there. This is an amusing trifle of a film with enough insight, twists and intelligence to elevate it above the everyday; and another impressive notch in Tony Gilroy’s directorial belt.

David Edwards

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