Duplicity

As his encore to Michael Clayton, Tony Gilroy doubles down with a second film about corporate chicanery. Kimberly Gadette posits: a great one-two punch? Or superfluous double-dipping from the well?

Like anxious students who push for extra credit on top of their perfect scores, it seems that writer/director Tony Gilroy is a classic overachiever. Why have one flashback when twenty are possible? Why not cram the frames with 12 exotic locales instead of five? Or dizzy up the dialogue with so-so one-upmanship, losing the characters' emotional life in the process?

Hence the trouble with Tony and his latest film, Duplicity.

We open in Dubai, 2003. Womanizing Ray (Clive Owen) picks up a beauty named Claire (Julia Roberts). After a tussle between the sheets, she sneaks through his drawers – no, the other ones – stealing something far more valuable than his heart. Which makes sense, since she's a corporate spy. Wouldn't you know it, so is he. Once they realize that their only chance at true love is to engage in a hefty double-cross that will permanently fund their escape to a lovers' paradise together, the game's afoot. The target: two warring titans in the pharmaceuticals industry. She'll be a mole at one company while he'll work for its competitor. If they're clever, they just might get away with $40 million.

But unlike the spies, the script's too clever by half. Gilroy steers the time-jumping film like HG Wells with a tic, throwing in so many convoluted scenes that the story often sinks with unnecessary weight. Sad, since the idea is fascinating. Per Gilroy: "The statistics of corporate theft are somewhere between $50-$100 billion every year. There isn’t a major corporation on the planet that doesn’t have a competitive intelligence department with some form of either defensive or offensive intelligence gathering …"

When the writer/director stops his frenetic chase long enough to study human behavior in the defensive/offensive intelligence game, eg the sexy means by which Ray manipulates entry into an otherwise forbidden building, the film can be supremely entertaining.

To be fair, Duplicity does have its share of spark. We're presented with an onscreen couple so full of passion that they can't keep their hands off each other. We see them first engage during the opening credits, and we hold our breath, begging for more. The hot couple in question? Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti.

Their slo-mo wrestle on the tarmac, nose to nose (mirroring their private jets, similarly nose to nose), their corporate groupies looking on in silent, open-mouthed horror, sets up the film as an irreverent black comedy. Unfortunately, that highlight doesn't shine again.

The other duo, Roberts and Owen, are certainly no slouches when it comes to conveying chemistry. But the film undermines them time after time. Gilroy focuses on the couple's mistrust, yet instead of that mistrust acting as an impediment to their supposed great love, we only hear about that love secondhand – and never actually see it for ourselves

Since relationships between lovers weren't addressed in Michael Clayton, this is the first time we notice the problem. Note to Gilroy the overachiever: perhaps in this one area, you might want to study up.

That said, Gilroy gets high marks for casting, utilizing fine supporting talent. Giamatti is great fun as a ruthless corporate pirate, not just chewing, but devouring the scenery in whole chunks. Gilroy alumni Wilkinson is, as usual, a commanding force. Particularly enthralling is his chilling speech about corporate evolution, speaking while concurrently trimming a Bonsai tree down to size as if it were his own company, dispassionately pruning the excess, whether in the form of man or leaf. And Carrie Preston is a comedic delight as an unwitting victim of lust, even stealing a bit of thunder from Roberts.

Surprisingly, it's the film's costume designer (Albert Wolsky) who double-crosses Roberts far more than her spy-friends, either attiring her in sundresses that look like secondhand eBay goods, or covering her in dowdy black. Even in the bedroom, she's never outfitted in the high-end lingerie we would expect from a well-heeled spy whose resume includes advanced seduction techniques. If the men are all dressed to the nines, why make Julia a costume zero?

We'd better hire a spy to get to the bottom of this.

Rating on a scale of 5 F B Eyes: 3

Release date: UK: March 20, 2009; US: March 20, 2009
Directed by: Tony Gilroy
Written by: Tony Gilroy
Cast: Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, Tom Wilkinson, Paul Giamatti, Denis O'Hare, Carrie Preston
Rating: UK=12A; US = PG-13
Running time: 125 minutes