Duplicity

In as much that this film is a success, it is Clive Owen's success. He provides the film's likeability, even while Gilroy's looping plot structure is working hard to generate a contrasting mood of arduousness.

Julia Roberts's character Claire Stenwick is by no means unattractive (though V and I had a little debate about what Roberts might have had done to her eye-lids recently) but she's the more inscrutable, less innately vulnerable of the pair.

Given the success of Michael Clayton I was wondering why Gilroy didn't essay a more serious piece on industrial espionage, but perhaps even he realised that the resolution of this particular tangle would depend on some major assumptions and some pretty ropy plot points (the photocopiers!) and hence chose to douse the whole thing in low key levity in order to distract audiences from these imperfections.

Grade: B+