Review of Duplicity (2009) by Chads — 22 Mar 2009

"You're unbelievable. You're un-****ing-believable...I've never had a DP act like this. You don't f***ing understand what it's like working with actors." This, of course, is a portion of the tirade that Christian Bale unleashed on the hapless cinematographer whose crime, according to the actor, was "f***ing around in the background.

" In other words, the DP dared to exist. The behavior displayed by this real-life American psycho only confirmed what most of us already suspected about movie stars, that some of them are incorrigible egotists who live in their own bubble of self-importance.

They use their agency like a license to treat the little people, the crew, like dirt. In "Duplicity", Clive Owen and Julia Roberts stop being Ray Koval and Claire Steinwick in a self-reflexive scene that makes an allusion to their profession.

The motel bedroom is transformed into a set, in which the two stars handhold scripts while rehearsing their respective character's lines. Bantering and looking good bantering, the intelligence officers carry an air of invincibility, each lost in his/her own elevated world of mutual sexiness.

At one point, Claire asks, "Are you directing me?" Nobody else exists. So they think. This scene informs an earlier one, where Ray orders his colleagues around with blunt aplomb for the especial purpose of servicing Claire.

In retrospect, Ray's brusque commandeering sounds analogous to an actor badgering the crew. "Duplicity", ultimately, works as a sort of deconstruction of the relationship between a director and his stars.

The film takes the agency away from the stars and hands it over to the subordinates.