MORE REVIEWS AT booksequalhappiness.blogspot.comI really loved this movie when I was young because it was funny but now that I rewatched it, I realized how mean it was. I now have a love-hate relationship with it because it's really funny because of the old woman but it was super devastating for the couple. It's probably best to not overanalyze things in order to enjoy it.

Duplex (2003): Dir: Danny De Vito / Cast: Ben Stiller, Drew Barrymore, Eileen Essel, Justin Theroux, Harvey Fierstein: Humor in a Danny De Vito film deals with behavior defects until one factor hits fatality as happened in Matilda and Death to Smoochy. Title suggests collaboration as married couple Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore move into an apartment where the upstairs tenant makes life miserable. Stiller tries to finish a novel but old Mrs. Connelly has him running errands, fixing pipes, and killing a mouse, which eventually leads to the loss of his job. Barrymore also suffer a job loss when wrong information ends up on a disc. They decide to kill her in various ways including the flu, tampering with her duplex, and eventually a hit-man. Very simple, repetitious and unpleasant throughout. De Vito has moments of fine comic timing but the humour is an acquired taste. Stiller and Barrymore are a fine duo but here they surrender to mean spirited writing where viewers will likely sympathize as oppose to laugh. Eileen Essel as Mrs. Connelly is a one note hag who presents a sweet old lady but the reality is something different. Justin Theroux appears as Stiller's friend in publishing. De Vito's films often contain dark humour but in this case the comedy is completely lost due to its ugliness. It regards co-existing with others even if the screenplay is nonexistent. Score: 4 / 10

The home gatecrasher, the unwelcome guest, and the tenant from hell. These can be used to sum up the story of Duplex, directed by comedian/actor Danny DeVito and featuring the first time pairing of comedians Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore as the husband and wife suburban couple who through an animated opening credit sequence, go through property after property looking for the perfect place to set up their home, which should also double up as a home office for Stiller's Alex Rose, an up and coming writer due to complete his next novel without having to write at Starbucks.Thanks to their housing agent, they settle for the titular duplex, which seemed like a great idea for their housing plans and one that's within their budget, a good deal even though it comes with a caveat that they cannot throw out the existing tenant, an old lady called Mrs Connelly (Eileen Essell) who stays upstairs and well, pays the rent. But little do they know that their lives would soon turn topsy turvy through the skillful manipulation that senior citizens can be capable of, appealing to good citizenry in wanting to help others, only to be willingly exploited to run errants, and face a crisis of sorts in either wanting to stay put, or leave.So we go into full gear of the battle between households, where sleep gets interrupted through the elderly lady putting on her TV at full blast, and the couple getting back in tit- for-tat fashion. But it seems that Mrs Connelly is always one step ahead either in the luck department, or having the authorities, Officer Dan (Robert Wisdom) on her side. After all, who would you rather believe - a frail old woman in her twilight years, or a young yuppie couple whose backfiring revenge tactics put them in bad light as discourteous, intolerant people? Oh if only everyone else knew the cunningness of the elderly!Danny DeVito's film, based on a story by Larry Doyle, however keeps things rather firmly in PG fashion even though the couple's intent move from nice tactics into murderous territory, deciding to employ desperate measures given that they're driven up the wall and with the couple both having their household revenue stream impacted. Both Stiller and Barrymore provide good comic timing especially in their individual scenes (well, someone has to bring home the bacon) when their characters get stuck with "entertaining" the bothersome old lady whose benign requests usually turn out to the contrary.But the scene stealer would of course be Eileen Essell as Mrs Connelly with her playing both the fragile old Irish lady who is more than meets the eye, a force to be reckoned with beneath the aged exterior, capable of tugging at your conscience and making you feel guilty should you not accede to her gentle pleas, which almost always come laced with sarcasm, or the nitty gritty that makes you feel bad. Convincingly playing her role without which this film would probably have not been able to make us laugh with or at Stiller and Barrymore's characters as they get stuck in their predicament which comes with a predictable twist at the end. It's evil, I know.

Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore make such a good looking couple in "Duplex".Danny Devito also directs the film and adds so much humor and energy into the film that will have you laughing on your sides.My friend gave me 2 choices between watching this movie and "The Hot Chick".He told me that "The Hot Chick" was really funny but he also told me that "Duplex" was also really funny.So I told him "Duplex" and I have to say that I was quite surprised at how funny and entertaining this movie was.The performances by Stiller and Barrymore were simply wonderful and I'm glad that Mr. Devito chose these 2 brilliant actors and put them in such delightful roles.There's also Eilleen Essell's performance, who plays the elderly person who ruins Stiller's and Barrymore's lives when they movie into a big house and have to share it with her.Although she did actually do some things to the couple that actually got me mad, I really thought that she was just a sweet person who obviously needed a lot of help around her house.I also need to mention that I think that this film is very underrated.How can something like this get a 5.7? It's not brilliant, but it's definitely not bad by any standards.As I always say, just watch the movie and just enjoy it for what it is.You actually may be surprised like I was.