Duplicity: What happened?

[Owain Taggart]

Just saw this and I wanted to like it because it had what looked like an amusing premise, but the movie had too many technical problems. A complete mess, and I'm not even talking about the story, but more in the way it was directed.


The first evident problem is the use of flashbacks. It's hard to do a movie where flashbacks work to serve the story, but when it works well, it can be quite clever. The problem here is that the flashbacks here are a joke and serve as a downfall to the movie rather than support it. The flashbacks have no frame of reference for the viewer because there's no set precedent. When you have a scene that starts off saying 18 hours earlier, followed by another scene that says 3 hours earlier, followed by a scene where time isn't indicated, well, where and when do these scenes take place in terms of the movie? Nobody knows because there's a lack of reference.

The other problem are the twist and turns. There are so many of them, and because of the flashbacks, it's hard to know who crossed who and when and how they fit into the timeline, creating a muddled mess, which lessens the impact of the twist and turns. By the time the movie ends, you end up not caring what happened at all and care more about the love story which is actually the B-plot.

 

[Starbreaker]

I gave the film an 'F' when I saw it last year. Horrible film.

 

[shivkala]

My wife and I often cannot find a movie we both agree on. With four kids, we don't get much chance to go out to see movies, either, which makes going to the movies a special occasion. Two years ago, we spent a week at my mother-in-law's house and she baby-sat for us so we could go out a few times. Usually, she gives in and agrees to see my movie, which she did the first night, when I picked, I Love You Man, and she gave me an ultimatum, saying it better be great, or else she'd get to pick the next five movies. She admitted after we left the theater that she thought it was really funny and great.

The next night, I agreed to see Duplicity, since, even though she enjoyed I Love You Man,, I felt I should do the right thing and agree to a movie she wanted to see. I have a hard time containing myself during movies I don't like, sighing, fidgeting, etc. As we left the theater, I expected the usual "lecture" she gives me on not giving the movie a chance, rushing to judgment, etc. To my surprise, she not only didn't lecture me, she admitted she did not like the film, at all.

We saw The Tourist last weekend and, while far from perfect, I thought it did a much better job than Duplicity at being duplicitous. Again, I'm not claiming that The Tourist was the best movie ever, but I felt more connected to the characters, felt more engaged in the plot, and enjoyed it a lot more than Duplicity.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Yeah Duplicity is pretty terrible. When I rented it and about half way through or so, I just FF to see how it ended--which, as it turned out, was badly.

 

[Trekker4747]

I saw the thread title as "Multiplicity" a '90s Michael Keaton movie featuring him as an overworked husband who has himself cloned to ease up his life. (The clones also produce a "copy of a copy" clone who's mentally deficient)

So, yeah, I came into this thread expecting something else and reading something else in a couple of the comments.

 

[Owain Taggart]

I saw the thread title as "Multiplicity" a '90s Michael Keaton movie featuring him as an overworked husband who has himself cloned to ease up his life. (The clones also produce a "copy of a copy" clone who's mentally deficient)

So, yeah, I came into this thread expecting something else and reading something else in a couple of the comments.

lol, if it makes you feel any better, I do remember that Micheal Keaton movie.

 

[Caliburn24]

Duplicity isn't a bad movie, it tries to be too clever for its own good sometimes, but it is not hard to understand if you pay attention.

The first half hour or so is confusing, deliberately, but it all falls into place as it moves along and the two leads are good together.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Duplicity isn't a bad movie, it tries to be too clever for its own good sometimes, but it is not hard to understand if you pay attention.

The first half hour or so is confusing, deliberately, but it all falls into place as it moves along and the two leads are good together.

Yeah, well the problem is that it's hard to pay attention to what's happening due to the badly used flashbacks and lack of reference for them, making the story highly fragmented. If the movie's trying to be smart, it needs to have hooks as frames of reference for the viewer to understand where and when things are, like Inception.

Instead, the flashbacks were like:

'Sometime, somewhere in space.'
'18 hours later'
'3 hours earlier'
'Somewhere else in space.'
'5 weeks earlier'
'3 days later'

 

[Aragorn]

I saw the thread title as "Multiplicity" a '90s Michael Keaton movie featuring him as an overworked husband who has himself cloned to ease up his life. (The clones also produce a "copy of a copy" clone who's mentally deficient)

So, yeah, I came into this thread expecting something else and reading something else in a couple of the comments.

You probably just gave Paul W.S. Anderson an idea for his next movie -- "Duplicity vs. Multiplicity."