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DVD Movie Rating for: Duplex

Rating for Duplex: 4 out of 5 stars

Movie Plot of: Duplex

Alex (Ben Stiller) and Nancy (Drew Barrymore) are a young, vibrant couple in New York City with bright futures ahead of them. But one thing is missing: a home of their own. That is, until they unexpectedly find their dream house: a charming old duplex.

But their new home comes with one feature they didn’t expect: an elderly, upstairs, rent-controlled tenant named Mrs. Connelly, who they soon realize isn’t quite as easygoing or as frail as she had originally led them to believe. Her slow trickle of demands picks up at a steady speed until Alex and Nancy are running themselves ragged. As the couple’s blissful life begins to seriously fray around the edges, their dream home rapidly turns into a nightmare. It’s then that they start to wonder: if they can’t move Mrs. Connelly out…

DVD Production Details of: Duplex

Starring: Ben Stiller, Drew Barrymore

Director: Danny DeVito

Format: Color

Aspect Ratio(s): 1.85:1

Audio Encoding: Dolby Digital 5.1

Studio: Miramax Home Entertainment
DVD Release Date: September 7, 2004
DVD Features:
Available subtitles: Spanish
Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French
Behind-the-scenes featurette

Deleted scenes

DVD Easter Eggs

None

Cast of the movie: Duplex

• Ben Stiller .... Alex Rose
• Drew Barrymore .... Nancy Kendricks
• Eileen Essel .... Mrs. Connelly
• Harvey Fierstein .... Kenneth
• Justin Theroux .... Coop
• James Remar .... Chick
• Robert Wisdom .... Officer Dan
• Swoosie Kurtz .... Jean
• Wallace Shawn .... Herman
• Maya Rudolph .... Tara
• Amber Valletta .... Celine
• Cheryl Klein .... Ginger
• Tim Maculan .... Terrence
• Jackie Titone .... Bartender
• Yevgeni Lazarev .... Mr. Dzerzhinsky (as Eugene Lazarev)
• Kumar Pallana .... Indian Restaurant Owner
• Philip Perlman .... Phil
• Gary Riotto .... Drug Dealer
• Michelle Krusiec .... Dr. Kang
• Margie Loomis .... Old Biddy #1
• Linda Porter .... Old Biddy #2
• Edward Edwards .... Antique Dealer
• Louis Giambalvo .... Pharmacist
• Tracey Walter .... Pharmacy Customer
• John Hamburg .... Mr. Friedman
• Christina Kirk .... Mrs. Friedman
• Jenette Goldstein .... Moderator
• Leyna Nguyen .... Female Newscaster
• Chuma Hunter-Gault .... Mailroom Guy
• Jim Castillo .... Weatherman
• Michael Fahn .... Sneezer on Train
• Roberta R. Deen .... Caterer
• Christopher Doyle .... Tavern Bartender
• Christine La Fontaine .... Don Piper Fan #1
• Joey Banks .... Police Officer
• Geraldine Hughes .... Receptionist
• Danny DeVito .... Narrator (voice)
• Picasso .... Little Dick
• Guiles .... Little Dick
• Bugsy .... Little Dick
• Maestro .... Little Dick
• Will Blomquist .... College Student on Subway
• Larry Vigus .... Man on the Street

Photo Gallery of the movie: Duplex

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Duplex starring Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore

Reviews of the movie: Duplex

Ben Stiller teams with starlet Drew Barrymore as a yuppie couple who are desperate to find the apartment of their dreams. Their realtor (Harvey Fierstein) recommends this little duplex with a lot of character. The little character that the place has seems to be the fact that the duplex has an 81-year old rent-controlled upstairs tenant named Mrs. Connelly (Eileen Essel). The couple thinks that a nice old lady will be quiet and very little bother so they move in.

Sweet elderly Mrs. Connelly becomes the tenant as nightmares for the couple as they literally watch their lives fall apart. Driven insane by her demands and noise, the couple plots to get rid of the old hag. But how do two inexperienced yuppies bump off an old woman?

Directed by Danny DeVito, “Duplex” escalates and amplifies a lot of the dark comedic timing that has been seen in previous Danny DeVito films. Danny DeVito desperately wants to relive his comedy classic, “Throw Momma From the Train” with this one. In some ways he achieves that but in other ways it gets really difficult to maintain the laughs. Danny DeVito’s brilliance came with “Momma” continued with “War of the Roses” and pinnacled with his heart-breaking drama “Hoffa”. Danny DeVito shows signs of surviving last year’s “Death to Smoochy” with “Duplex” but he still has a long way to go.

Drew Barrymore and Ben Stiller are great in this film but 82-year old Eileen Essel steals the show. Her performance reminded me a lot of how legendary Anne Ramsey stole “Momma” away from Billy Crystal and Danny DeVito . It is a great performance.

“Duplex” runs out of steam when the central characters have to hire hitman/pornographer Chick (James Remar) to finish the job. Just before and until the film’s twist ending, I felt that it got to serious or had a hard time on how it was going to wrap-up the on-going feud.

“Duplex” is still a very funny and amusingly sinister black comedy. And while it isn’t up to the mythically classical standards of Danny DeVito’s “Throw Mamma From the Train” and “The War of the Roses,” it’s still a creepily comical way to spend 90 or so minutes.

Young New Yorkers Alex (Ben Stiller) and Nancy (Drew Barrymore) have decided to take the big plunge into real estate. It’s time to get their first home, that perfect place where they can raise a family and toss a few throw rugs, and they think they’ve found it on a quiet little street in Brooklyn. It’s an adorable brownstone with three fireplaces, a huge vaulted ceiling and old-world flavor that’s perfectly romantic. It’s also a duplex with an elderly tenant named Mrs. Connelly (Eileen Essell) living upstairs, protected from eviction by New York’s ironclad rent control policies. No matter, because by the look of her she’s not going to last too much longer, and the moment she passes on the value of the home is going to skyrocket.

Now, we all know where this is going, don’t we? Little old Mrs. Connelly has no intention whatsoever of dying. If anything, the little old bitty is a hotbed of activity, what with her television on at full blast all night or a gaggle of elderly bugle players filling the house with their off-key practicing. Alex, who’s an up and coming writer facing a strict deadline to turn in his latest manuscript, finds himself to be at the woman’s mercy. Whether having to chaperone her around town on errands or dealing with plumbing issues, what with her incessant nagging and the nightly lack of sleep he’s never going to get his novel to the agent on time.

But it isn’t until the elderly woman’s incessant eccentricities lead to Nancy losing her job at a posh magazine do things really take a turn for the worst. Very bad things follow very bad things, and soon Alex and Nancy have come to the conclusion that the seemingly sweet and ostensibly kind Mrs. Connelly is in fact in league with Lucifer himself, intent on destroying the young couple’s lives. Faced with financial ruination, the duo is left with one recourse: Mrs. Connelly must die. As their home starts to fall apart around them and the old bird stubbornly refuses to kick the bucket, Alex and Nancy travel further and further past the deep end, treading into mutually psychotic waters as their sanity sails slowly away.

Call it “The Trouble with Harry” crossed with a pinch of “The Money Pit” and you’ve got the general idea for this droll black comedy. Danny DeVito directs for more assuredly and with much less chutzpah than he did with his last effort, the train wreck “Death to Smoochy.” Here he leaves much of the flying camerawork and headache inducing editing alone, allowing cinematographer Anastas Michos (“The People vs. Larry Flynt”) the freedom to let his wide lens subtly showcase all of the interior shenanigans. The director also stages some his most giddy comedic set pieces since Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner found themselves dangling from a chandelier, Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore falling face first into a pratfall with the best of them.

In fact, former “Simpsons” writer Larry Doyle’s script has probably the best ratio of giggles of any movie this year; it’s just sustaining them – or even producing a couple of guffaws – that he has problems with. While the writer definitely shows wit and intelligence, there still isn’t a shred of anything new going on here. I knew what was going to happen each step of the way up until the very end, the hoped-for surprise conclusion nothing to call home about. It is as if while writing he decided to, not so much take the teeth out of the film, but to dull them down to a rounded tip. There’s also a heavy reliance on bathroom humor that’s particularly misplaced, more suited for a National Lampoon farce than it is here.

The cast is uniformly excellent, though, with Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore sharing a sweet, intoxicating chemistry that’s completely beguiling. Even better, once they both start to realize that they share ghoulish fantasies in regards to Mrs. Connelly, the duo impart a sycophantic melding of the minds that’s at once sweetly calming just as much as it perversely disturbs. But where Stiller trots out many of the tics and mannerisms we’ve seen before and come to expect from him (Greg from “Meet the Parents” comes most readily to mind), Drew Barrymore comes on like a blooming sunflower who’s seeds just happen to be laced with cyanide. She revels going into Nancy’s nether regions, a pertinacious tinge of evil resting just beneath her ruby-red smile. Harvey Fierstein and Wallace Shawn also make indelible impressions, upping the laugh meter just a tad during their brief appearances.

All of that said, “Duplex” would never work anywhere near as well as it does without the presence of Eileen Essel. A veteran actress of the stage, she’s the movie’s true star, her delicate Irish lilt setting the film afire. At once the epitome of the kind, elderly next neighbor, at the other the very type of obsessing demon that would drive even the most sacred soul to drink, Essell carries the spotlight brilliantly. Whether feeding her Macaw nicknamed “Little Dick” a hot dog with child-like innocence or staring down intruders while coldly smoking a cigarette like a back alley enforcer, the actress is a revelation. For all the familiarity, she almost makes “Duplex” work better than it should just by her sheer charismatic willingness alone, generating more genuine laughs that both her better known costars combined.

Familiarity aside, “Duplex” is definitely worth the time. It’s hard to understand how it has amassed its bad buzz or why Miramax has taken so long to get it into theaters as it is far better – and far funnier – than many of the other so-called “comedies” they’ve released of late (i.e. the insipid “My Boss’ Daughter”). While it doesn’t rank up there with Danny DeVito directed classics, it’s still a pleasantly devilish way to spend some time at the movies.