In Danny DeVito’s Duplex, Alex (Ben Stiller) and Nancy (Drew Barrymore) move into a suspiciously cost-effective apartment in Brooklyn expecting an idyllic existence only to discover that their upstairs tenant, Mrs. Connelly (Eileen Essel), is really the neighbor from hell. The seemingly cute and innocent old bitty annoys Alex with her fuzzy math (in one of the film’s funnier bits, she’s seen counting everything from pennies to blueberries) and keeps the married couple up all night with her television. And after countless domestic disturbances, Alex and Nancy decide to take matters into their own hands.
The absurdities are few and far between (the film’s major running gag implies that Mrs. Connelly actually runs across her living room in order to turn on her TV) and the film’s one-joke premise quickly wears thin, no thanks in part to DeVito’s uninspired direction. Essentially a 90-minute pilot episode for a rejected TV sitcom, Duplex is watchable for Essel’s ridiculous performance as the film’s geriatric monster, and DeVito’s retro concoctions have a certain cornball allure, but one gets the sense that he’s still trapped in the past: If his Death to Smoochy poked fun at Barney Mania a good five years too late, Duplex could just as easily have been called Throw Momma from the Money Pit. Been there, done that.
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