Jonathan Poritsky

Duplicity opens qui­etly at an embassy soirée in Dubai. Clive Owen barely approaches Julia Roberts at the margherita table when we are thrust into this svelte lit­tle caper. Director Tony Gilroy, still glow­ing from the suc­cess of Michael Clayton, returns with his crack team (we’ll get to them) to cre­ate what this hum­ble critic believes is the best major release of 2009 so far.

Mr. Owen and Ms. Roberts play Ray Koval and Claire Stenwick, two for­mer state spies who take cor­po­rate intel posi­tions at com­pet­ing house­hold prod­ucts firms, Equikrom and Burkett & Randle (B & R). When B & R leaks the exis­tence of a top secret project, the game is on to see who can get to the spoils first. That is really all I can put down here to keep the film inter­est­ing for you, so let’s dive into the meat of it. Keep Reading at the can­dler blog.