Duplex Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)September 26th, 2003
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Everybody but me hated Danny DeVito's last directorial effort (the unfairly maligned Death to Smoochy), and I have a feeling things will be completely flip-flopped for his most recent, Duplex. It's a sporadically funny film with a shockingly unoriginal script brought to life by two of Hollywood's brightest physical comedians. Without Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore (but mostly Stiller), Duplex would probably have gone straight to video, assuming someone had actually bothered to give it the green light.
Duplex, which was due in theatres over a year ago and has seen about a dozen scrapped release dates (always the sign of a mess) is about Alex (Stiller, The Royal Tenenbaums) and Nancy (Barrymore, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle), a young couple in search of the perfect yet affordable house. They find it, they think, in a two-unit brownstone in Brooklyn. The digs are gorgeous and spacious, offering Alex a nice, quiet space for him to finish his second novel. And there's an upstairs apartment that could easily be transformed into bedrooms for children, as Alex and Nancy are feeling pressure to procreate from their pregnant friends (Justin Theroux and Amber Valletta).
The upstairs tenant, though, doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Mrs. Connelly (Eileen Essel), a 90-something Irishwoman, seemed to have one foot in the grave when Alex and Nancy bought the place, but she becomes the picture of health once they sign the papers and move in. Mrs. Connelly is incredibly noisy and bothersome, constantly interrupting Alex's (she calls him Alan) attempts at tying up his book before his rapidly approaching deadline. And, to top it off, she only pays $88 per month for her rent-controlled apartment.
If you've seen the trailer, you might get the impression Duplex is about Alex and Nancy trying to kill their elderly neighbor, but they don't really develop homicidal impulses until over two-thirds of the movie has unspooled. And that's a pretty big disappointment. What's left is a medley of themes we've already seen in Money Pit, Pacific Heights, Single White Female, the Bad Dream House segment of Treehouse of Horrors I, and two of DeVito's earlier directorial efforts - Throw Momma from the Train and The War of the Roses.
In DeVito's defense, he signed on after the script was in place and another director had dropped out. And the problems here are mostly script-related (it was penned by Simpsons writer Larry Doyle) - the story isn't terribly strong, or full of original ideas, other than a novel vomit scene. The only thing that makes Duplex remotely watchable are its leads, whose performances are essentially reduced to reaction shots.
1:29 - PG-13 for sexual content, language and some violence
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