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BookmarkDUPLEXAnyone who’s lived in an apartment will understand the mounting frustration of Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore as they grapple with the upstairs neighbor of their worst nightmares in Duplex, directed by Danny DeVito. Stiller and Barrymore play a young couple who think they’ve found the home of their dreams when they buy an astonishingly spacious Brooklyn duplex. Unfortunately, the second floor comes with a tenant, a seemingly sweet little old lady (Eileen Essell). Her petty demands and manipulative ways drive Stiller and Barrymore to desperate attempts to oust her–and when she breezily resists their worst efforts, the hapless pair begin to consider more serious (and final) measures. Duplex might be called a comedy of anxiety; it constantly pricks at your expectations of disaster, sending you into a nervous state that demands laughter as a release. Also featuring Wallace Shawn, Harvey Fierstein, and Swoosie Kurtz. –Bret Fetzer
Rating: 
(out of 95 reviews)
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Review by Barbara L. Morris for Duplex
Rating:
Everything about this movie I love. I love both Drew Barrymore and Ben Stiller too!
They are so endearing and convincing as a newly married couple.
It starts out that this young married couple are having a hard time finding the house of thier dreams in their price range. It seems almost too good to be true when they find a duplex near the big city life in Brooklyn, it is beautiful and spacious, and the downfall is that it comes with a very, VERY old woman who rents the upstairs apartment.
Because of a clause in her rental agreement, they cannot kick her out,but being that she is old, they figure she will die soon enough, So they buy the place and move in.
Suddenly the old lady seems healthy as a horse, and is a constant nuisance to them.
She keeps them awake all night with her blaring TV, Always bothering them for favors etc.
As things continue to go from bad to worse, they decide to have a hit on her, and hire a hit man to do it…Like everything else, that goes terribly wrong, too.
This movie is full of mishaps, one after another, and soon you will be rooting for them to kill the old hag
There are a few twists that will surprise you in the end, but I guarantee it will keep you laughing !
Highly reccomended, and one you will want to watch over and over.
Review by melvin brooks for Duplex
Rating:
Yes, I had never heard of this movie until my girlfriend rented it one night. I loved Zoolander so I wasn’t that surprised to like this. Anywho..the whole “Clapper” scene was so stupid I almost puked I was laughing so hard.Honestly we kept backing up the movie just for that scene. Just watching Ben Stillers face contort in agony was great. Great Friday night movie worth watching again!
Review by Mary Chrapliwy for Duplex
Rating:
This is a comedy about a young couple who decides to buy a duplex just outside New York City. They have an irritating old woman living upstairs in a rent controlled apartment that they own as part of the property. He’s a writer, struggling to finish his second novel. She’s the supportive wife going off to work at a magazine in NY. The little old woman is a very old widow.
During the course of the movie, the old woman continuously disturbs their sleep, destroys the writer’s ability to finish his work, and generally disrupts the peace and tranquility they mistakenly thought they would attain with the purchase of the house.
What follows is a myriad of very entertaining, slapstick comedy and a murder plot. This movie is funny, but somehow just misses the mark. So much more could have been done with the plot and parts of the story just fall flat. Though this is an entertaining movie I recommend that you rent, don’t buy. You’ll watch it once and live happily without watching it ever again. It is most definitely not a keeper.
Review by Roland E. Zwick for Duplex
Rating:
In Danny De Vito’s “Duplex,” Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore play a young couple who buy a “dream apartment” in Brooklyn whose amenities include everything two upwardly mobile yuppies could possibly want: ample space, solid wood floors, three glorious fireplaces, and, above all, a quiet environment where Alex, a budding novelist, can spend his days writing in uninterrupted peace and quiet. Or so they think…for, unfortunately, the place also comes replete with what turns out to be the tenant from hell, a doddering old woman who lives on the second floor and who makes life miserable for the two of them with her continually blaring television and her constant intrusions into their daily lives. Finally driven to the breaking point, Alex and Nancy decide to take matters into their own hands in order to rid themselves of this human pest in any way they can.
“Duplex” is, essentially, a one-joke comedy and, as such, it does suffer from the occupational hazard common to all one-joke comedies of built-in repetitiousness. However, the writing has a surprisingly dark edge to it that lifts the film above the run-of-the-Hollywood-comedy-mill. I must confess to having a certain weakness for dotty old lady comedies, counting among my favorite films the original British classic “The Lady killers” from 1955. Eileen Essel is so delightful as the bete noire of the piece that it’s hard not to fall under the spell of both her character and the film itself. De Vito, in a return to the black comedy form that served him so well in “The War of the Roses,” keeps the comedy tough and brutal, even if it means bludgeoning the audience over the head a bit in the process. Stiller does his usual shtick as the put-upon Everyman, while Barrymore is able to use her customary cutesiness to full advantage as the sweet little ingenue driven to murder to save her own sanity.
“Duplex” is certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, and I imagine that it would not win the stamp of approval from the AARP. Still, if you’re in the market for something different in a mainstream comedy, “Duplex” just might fit the bill.
Review by Puzzle box for Duplex
Rating:
O.k. so there were some funny scenes especialy when the old lady started dancing with the river dance group on T.V. and then Ben Stiller’s character does the same thing, it was hilariously dumb but those scenes were very few and far between, some scenes just dragged on and on and just weren’t that funny. Danny Devito hit an all time low when he did this film and both Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore had better films than this so I suggest that you avoid this film and watch Dodgeball instead, trust me you don’t want to waste your time with this below average comedy film.