Duplex (film)

Duplex (released in the United Kingdom and Ireland as Our House) is a 2003 American black comedy film directed by Danny DeVito (who also narrated the film) and written by Larry Doyle. The film stars Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore with Eileen Essell, Harvey Fierstein, Robert Wisdom, Justin Theroux and James Remar in supporting roles.

Plot
Young, professional New York couple Alex Rose (Ben Stiller) and Nancy Kendricks (Drew Barrymore) are in search of their dream home. The seemingly perfect Brooklyn brownstone duplex has one flaw: Mrs. Connelly, an old Irish lady who lives on the rent-controlled top floor. Assuming she won't live long, they buy the whole building.

However, they soon realize Mrs. Connelly is lively, enjoys blasting her TV 24-7 and rehearsing in a brass band. A novelist, Alex must finish his latest against a looming deadline. However, he is interrupted constantly daily by Mrs. Connelly, and it quickly escalates into an all-out war.

The couple try to get her to move out, but she refuses. Next, they try to file a noise complaint against her, but discover that she has gone to the police first and filed a harassment charge against them. Their friends turn against them when she play-acts as the "poor, innocent, old lady" making it appear they are out to harm her.

Nancy loses her job and Alex misses his deadline thanks to the old lady's antics, so they are trapped at home together with Mrs. Connelly with no place to go. Their rage turns to homicidal fantasy as they plot ways to get rid of their manipulative, no-good neighbor. Peace overtures and a break-in lead to nothing, so they hire a hitman, Chick, to kill her. His asking price for the hit is $25,000. Desperate and needing the money in two days, they sell almost everything they own to pay for the Christmas Eve hit.

Chick breaks into Mrs. Connelly's apartment as planned, but fails to kill her as she defends herself with a speargun, shooting him in the shoulder. She is incapacitated in the fight, and the duplex catches fire. Nancy and Alex appear to leave her to die, but then return and save her and her parrot. The fire department puts out the fire. Accepting defeat, Alex and Nancy leave, and are told the old woman has just died. Moving away, they contemplate their strange encounter.

We then learn that they are not the first to be elaborately scammed by: the realtor Kenneth (played by Harvey Fierstein) of the duplex, who is, in fact, Mrs. Connelly's son, the ill-tempered NYPD Officer Dan, who is also Kenneth's boyfriend, and who had frequently harassed and distrusted the couple, always siding with Mrs. Connelly in her disputes against them, and Mrs. Connelly herself (who is still alive).

The real-estate scam had been run by the trio for several years, with Kenneth selling the ground-floor apartment to an unsuspecting, naive young couple, then Mrs. Connelly, aided by Dan, harassing the buyers, eventually forcing them to move out. Finally, she fakes her own death so they will never suspect a thing, thus leaving them to collect and live off of the sales commission from the next unsuspecting buyers.

Alex and Nancy were their latest victims, amongst many. Despite everything, as they celebrate their latest victory, she admits she actually liked Alex and Nancy and hopes they find success and happiness elsewhere.

Alex and Nancy relocated to The Bronx. Like the other couples the trio scammed, they never saw Mrs. Connelly or returned to Brooklyn again. Alex used their unpleasant experience as inspiration for his next book entitled Duplex, which becomes a best-seller. A final voice-over by the narrator relates that "Alex and Nancy's dream house may have been too good to be true, but did they live happily ever after? Well, read the book.".

Reception
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two stars out of four and wrote that the "murder schemes aimed at Mrs. Connelly don't generate the laughter they should, maybe because no matter what she does, she still seems, irremediably, unredeemably, a sweet little old lady. [...] Duplex is all about plotting; it tries to impose emotions that we don't really feel. We can't identify with Mrs. Connelly, that's for sure, but we can't identify with Alex and Nancy, either, because we don't share their frustration -- and the reason we don't is because we don't believe it. There's too much contrivance and not enough plausibility, and so finally we're just enjoying the performances and wishing they'd been in a more persuasive movie."

Barrymore earned a Golden Raspberry Award nomination for Worst Actress for her performances in both Duplex and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, but lost to Jennifer Lopez for Gigli.

On a $40 million budget, it grossed $9,692,135 in the US, and $19,322,135 worldwide, making it a commercial failure.