Spend your rent money on ‘Duplex’

There’s something about a movie like “Duplex” where you have a feeling that you shouldn’t like it, but you can’t help it. Your heart swells as you watch it, and you think you’d have to have a heart of stone to dislike it. Combine this quality with a silly script and the utterly congenial Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore, and you have a film that will always capture your attention.

“Duplex” centers on a young, recently married couple looking for a nice place to settle down. Alex (Stiller) is a small-time novelist and Nancy (Barrymore) is an art designer for a magazine; they’re not exactly the biggest moneymakers.

However, they are lucky enough to find a duplex in Brooklyn. The only catch is that they have to play landlord to the other tenant in the building, doddering old Mrs. Connelly (Eileen Essel). The old woman must be pushing 100 years old and can’t have too long before she kicks off, leaving both floors to Alex and Nancy.

At first, Mrs. Connelly is very pleasant and inviting. But soon, the errands she asks the couple to run begin to get more and more ridiculous, and her attitude becomes more and more obnoxious. She begins to run into their personal lives, especially with the suspicious cop, Officer Dan (Robert Wisdom) breathing down their necks. She makes their lives miserable, and the young couple gathers she’s certainly not going to die anytime soon. It seems that Alex and Nancy may have to kill two birds with one stone and do in the old bat themselves.

Much of Ben Stiller’s career has focused on a premise of a normal man who is caught in a series of upsetting, yet hilarious misunderstandings; “Duplex” takes that idea and runs with it. Alex and Nancy seem to have only the best intentions coming in, and yet Murphy’s Law is in full effect. The audience may groan at the terrible catastrophes that befall them through their own making (“No! Don’t do that! Something bad will happen!”), but the antics are so delightfully silly that they are fully engaged in the plot.

“Duplex” is an actors’ movie. Certainly the script has some downright great one-liners and gags, but it would not have worked nearly as well if the actors were subpar. One particular scene reflects the great casting: after an apartment mishap, Officer Dan steps in, grits his teeth and calls Alex a “slumlord.” It doesn’t sound quite as funny written down, but Wisdom’s tough persona perfectly bounces off Stiller, whose very appearance is the polar opposite of a slumlord.

The whole movie’s casting seems to be very carefully planned. Supporting characters include Harvey Fierstein, only present to bring smiles to the viewer with his trademark gravelly voice, and Wallace Shaun (the “inconceivable!” character in “The Princess Bride”), merely around for the utmost pleasure of his appearance.

“Duplex” is directed by Danny DeVito whose great acting credits often overshadow his behind-the-camera work. He’s got some great credits for all tastes (“The War of the Roses,” “Hoffa,” “Matilda”), but not many people can recall them offhand. If you haven’t seen any of DeVito’s films, “Duplex” is a superb, delightfully insane gateway to a man who knows his way around movies.