I saw the film ‘Duplicity’ tonight and then read Dana Steven’s review and listened to the ‘spoiler’ and read the (only three) posts before setting to my own conclusions.

A big deal in the film was how when the two protagonists, Claire and Ray, are alone (or so they think) and are engaged in the most open and honest conversation together they decry how difficult it is to find true love as spies since they are so well trained in the arts of deception. Ray goes so far as to assert that such duplicity is unique to government spies like them who are so well trained in deception, “which no civilians are, or at least they are not willing to cop for it” meaning that the civilians always keep their own deceits safely cloistered behind the walls of polite social conventions and that they live in total denial of them, rather like innocent children trying very hard to still believe in Santa Clause.

The several plot twists are incidental to this overarching fact but they do create tension even as they cause us to quickly forget about it. The film overall had the same lasting effect as did the novel 1984 by George Orwell in the way that it totally destroyed any semblance of personal privacy no matter how cautious the two lovers had made their rendezvous plans. Seeing Claire and Ray together at the end was like learning that Winston and Julia in 1984 had been caught right from the start when they first began their rebellious love making out in the countryside, they were both busted and clueless. It was absolutely devastating to witness how puny the mightiest efforts of these two highly trained spies in love with each other were in the face of the ubiquitous corporate security apparatuses. Their fate is worse even than was that of Romeo and Juliet for it’s being so up to date.

It does all make me wonder though exactly where were those corporate security geniuses on 9/10, or why did these omniscient captains, no Titans, of corporate industry drive the entire world economy into the shitters.

Is ‘Duplicity’ a good film? Absolutely.