Duplicity

I dunno about this movie.

Clive Owen, Julia Roberts, Tom Wilkinson, Paul Giamatti -- I should have felt better when I left the theater. They are all consummate performers.

There are so many convolutions on convolutions and double crosses on double crosses, and some that aren't, that it is hard to keep up with what is happening, much less figure it out.

We did not figure it out, and yet we did.

I'd like a different ending.

It's a kind of cerebral romance-drama-spy flick-corporate spoof-ironic comedy, if that makes sense. What was this movie anyway? What was it trying to do or convey? No car chases; no killing.

How about setting out to be a romantic comedy with a twist? It could have been.

It has to do with high finance, the corporate sector, the head honchos of competing companies in the sector, two ex-government agents...sort of a spoof on modern life.

The poor travel agent. I truly felt sorry for her. Caught up in something she didn't know.

But it isn't a comedy, though there are elements of farce in it.

And irony.

I'd watch it more than once to watch for clues, etc. if there had been a different ending or if they had tied up a couple of loose ends in the end credits or if they had shown where the characters were in a few weeks or months.

As is, I dunno.

And it just seems that they could have made a movie that we really enjoyed out of this topic.

There was mild chemistry between Owen and Roberts. But not really believable.

No one clapped at the end. I don't think anyone went out feeling particularly good, nor particularly bad. Maybe we felt taken. So, in our minds we rewrite the ending.

We could have gone out cheering! Perhaps the writer(s) had to rewrite so often that even s/he/they didn't know what to make of it. You really can't have both: a clever, romantic comedy spy flick and a downer of an ending.

They needed an ending past the ending.

C'est la vie!

Have you seen it? What did you think?

Karin

Originally posted 2009-03-26 15:26:19.

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