Un duplex pour 3

Put this on last night not know anything about it and was pleasantly surprised. The plot was interesting and finished with a nice twist. Stiller and Barrymore worked well together and had a good chemistry, and it was a nice surprise to watch a comedy without too many attempts at silly slapstick.

There are very few laugh out loud moments, but I was smiling on a number of occasions. Definitely reminds me of War of the Roses, which is no bad thing, and the leads play it very well.

I liked the ending too, although I would have gone absolutely mental if I was them. Not what I was expecting at all. Anyone expecting the regular Ben Stiller comedy like Dodgeball will be disappointed but if you approach this with an open mind, you should be OK.

Overall, quite good and a well earned 7 out of ten from me.

A couple in New York purchase a duplex at an incredibly low price. The only catch is that there is an old lady that lives upstairs and she has to remain living there. This movie was like "Madhouse" and "Home Alone" with an old lady playing Macauly Culkin.

Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore play the young couple Alex Rose and Nancy Kendricks. They are building their relationship and their careers when they buy a duplex and live in hell from then on.

The movie was funny, or it had a funny situation rather. It was amusing to see the lengths that Alex and Nancy were going through to get rid of the old lady upstairs. Truly, that woman would try the patience of Job. You don't even know the extent that you could utterly despise an old woman until you see this movie.

Who else but Danny DeVito could take a sweet little old lady and make a seriously funny sweet little old lady from hell movie that reminded me very much of Home Alone? Hmmm? Drew Barrymore, as sweet as ever, is sugar and spice and ready for some down to earth homicide, while the very demented Ben Stiller, like the twisted offspring of Chevy Chase and Jerry Seinfeld, slam dunks himself just short of his own demise. Hey, folks, Duplex is a seriously funny and entertaining piece of insanity from one of my favorite insane people, Danny DeVito. If you must have 'cinema' to be satisfied or you have no room in your heart for silliness, then you might want to skip this. Otherwise, drop in the DVD and buckle up. Duplex is ready for take off.

Eileen Essell was 80 when she made her Hollywood debut in Duplex. And she steals Duplex from Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore.

Essell's portrait of a bothersome old tenant is a tour-de-force. Somehow she's sympathetic despite being a royal pain in the ass.

Stiller and Barrymore do so well I almost started to consider Barrymore to be a legitimate Barrymore. You know, an actual actor instead of just a smirking twerp. Watch her face at the restaurant when Stoiller is ranting.

And Stiller, well, his comic talents are under-appreciated in a world where Adam Sandler baby-talk movies haul in billions of dollars.

OK, they have murderous intent. But who could blame them. I would have murdered the old bat within a week.

At any rate there are a lot of laughs in this movie. I don't understand what else people want out of a movie.

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 ingénue 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.