Soap Opera

Duplicity (2009) was another more or less random choice - as Netflix DVD service winds down, the choice is collapsing - the Saved queue has disappeared, no new DVDs are showing up - so I am looking at my queue (107 movies long) and pulling out stuff I don't expect to seek out elsewhere. This looked like a sexy, tricky thriller starring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen. Why not?

It starts at a party in Dubai. Owen tries to seduce Roberts, and she shuts him down, but they wind up in bed together. Then she drugs him and steals the secret documents he has hidden under the bed. Owen was MI6, Roberts CIA. 

Five years later, Owen is working private security, delivering a package. He spots Roberts on the street and chases her down. She claims she doesn't know him and they quarrel. Then he discovers that she is his partner on this one. She is disgusted - how could she be saddled with such a bad spy? But they do start to work together. 

The companies they are working for are soap and cosmetics firms. At first I thought - ooh, clever fronts. But no, they really are two soap manufacturers who are bitter rivals. Owen is handled by Duke (Denis O'Hare) whose boss is Dick (Paul Giamatti). Dick and Duke. Roberts is working for their rival - or is she?

Flashback to three years ago, it shows them meeting in Rome for the first time since Dubai (?). They do the same argument - she claims she doesn't know him, he claims they met in Dubai - word for word. And again they fall into bed. They don't trust each other, and that's what makes it so hot. 

I guess this is a real thriller, but when I found out they were working for soap companies, I realized that this is really a Rom-Com, disguised as a thriller. The high-tech espionage, appropriate for military secrets, applied to a new skin cream is what gave it away. Also, Paul Giamatti's goofy paranoid aggressiveness. 

So there are several more flashbacks, revealing more schemes and lies. Hope that's not a spoiler. It ends in one final stupid twist - I'm not sure whether the twists are supposed to be a strength of the movie, or silly scaffolding to hang the sexual tension on. Also, not sure the tension was as palpable as they thought it was, even with super-hot Roberts and Owen.

So, as far as I was concerned, not much of a thriller, not much of a rom-com. But it was kind of funny as a spy parody, and the leads were certainly pleasant enough. Ms. Spenser skipped this entirely, and I wouldn't blame you if you did too. But I kind of enjoyed it.