Duplicity

Duplicity (2009) A movie that refuses to dumb down to the comic-book audiences of today is a pearl beyond price. This one is insanely complicated, but stays just within the bounds of something you could figure out. It aspires to be a romantic thriller like Charade, and though it’s not quite in that league, it is smart and nice to look at with all its foreign locations, and the dialogue is sharp and well-played by Clive Owen and Julia Roberts. If you’d asked me if I could be intrigued by the story of industrial espionage between two firms like, say, Procter & Gamble and Lever Brothers over the formula for a new and revolutionary shampoo, I’d have been doubtful. But that’s exactly what this is, and it is funny and, toward the end, even tense. I was pleasantly surprised.