Don't see "Duplicity" with high expectations

Those who go to see the movie Duplicity with high expectations are going to be terribly disappointed. My Hero and I went to see it Sunday morning. I walked into the film with absolutely no expectations and found it to be a nice bit of harmless froth. My Hero went in after reading where The Dallas Morning News had wrongheadedly given the movie a grade of A-. At most, the movie deserves a B. She was terribly disappointed by it.

The film has a lot going for it and I will mention most of those in a minute. But first let me tell what's wrong with it. It's a narrative mess. Unfortunately, I can't explain why in great detail without spoiling many of the film's surprises, but let me mention just one bit so you can see what I mean.

The film begins with what appears to be a chance encounter between stars Clive Owen and Julia Roberts, which quickly leads to a sexual liaison in Owen's hotel room. But Roberts drugs Owen and steals papers he's carrying on nefarious Egyptian activities or somesuch (It doesn't matters what the subject of the papers are.) It turns out that Owen was part of British intelligence and Roberts was CIA. Jump to five years later and now both are working in corporate intelligence. They meet again in a New York City bar (it doesn't matter why or how) and Owen has this "How-could-you-have-done-this-to-me" speech while Roberts claims she has no idea who he is. A few minutes later, the film jumps back a couple of years in time to Rome where Owen is sitting with a comely lass at a sidewalk cafe when he spots Roberts. He chases her down and the two have exactly the same conversation they will have two years later in the New York bar. Clever, I thought. I can't wait to see writer-director Tony Gilroy's explanation for this. But, then, there is no explanation. He leaves it hanging out there.

There are more examples of these logic gaps in the picture that winds up being too clever for its own good.

But now that I mentioned the word "good," I guess I should fulfill the promise I made earlier and tell what you I liked about this film. It is beautifully shot and wonderfully scored. It is a romance thriller that falls way short on the thrills but delivers big time on the romance. Owen and Roberts are movie stars of the first order and they play off each other spectacularly. Watching this film made me even more certain that Owen should have been Pierce Brosnan's replacement to play James Bond. And while no couple I will ever know will find themselves in the situations Owen and Roberts experience in this film, the movie does pose the universal question every couple asks: "How completely can I really trust my mate?"