Movie Reviews: "Duplicity"

[JamesG]

Movie Reviews: Duplicity
20 March 2009 1:33 AM, PDT


Duplicity , a spy drama starring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, continually throws curves at the audience, attempting surprise at every twist. That's both its virtue and its vice, the critics suggest.

Roger Ebert writes in the Chicago Sun-Times: "Duplicity is entertaining, but the complexities of its plot keep it from being really involving: When nothing is as it seems, why care? The fun is in watching Roberts and Owen fencing with dialogue, keeping straight faces, trying to read each other's minds."

But A.O. Scott in the New York Times has no reluctance to call it "superior entertainment, the most elegantly pleasurable movie of its kind to come around in a very long time."

Mike Clark in USA Today credits some superb performances by the stars, along with assists by Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson for the film's success. He concludes: "Hollywood used to produce satisfying, big-star entertainments all year long. Now, for movie lovers, the first four months of the year are as barren as the Mojave Desert. So with its smart writing delivered by an in-synch quartet, savor Duplicity as the ideal spring gift."

And has Julia Roberts lost her magic during her hiatus? Well, Lou Lumenick in the New York Post answers that question tentatively: "She's a formidable actress, but, at 41, she finally seems comfortable being a movie star, as well," he writes, "The camera still loves her, and she seems to be having a blast. ... So will audiences, I think."

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