director
Harold Ramis
screenwriters
Chris Miller
Mary Hale
Lowell Ganz
Babaloo Mandel
story by
Chris Miller
producers
Trevor Albert
Harold Ramis
cinematographer
László Kovács
music
George Fenton
editors
Craig Herring
Pem Herring
cast
Michael Keaton (Doug Kinney)
Andie MacDowell (Laura Kinney)
Zack Duhame (Zack Kinney)
Katie Schlossberg (Jennifer Kinney)
Harris Yulin (Dr. Leeds)
Richard Masur (Del King)
Eugene Levy (Vic)
Ann Cusack (Noreen)
John de Lancie (Ted)
Brian Doyle-Murray (Walt)
Obba Babatundé (Paul)
Julie Bowen (Robin)
mpaa rating: PG-13
running
time: 117m
u.s.
release: 6/17/96
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
other harold
ramis films
reviewed on this website:
- analyze
that
- analyze
this
- bedazzled
- the
ice harvest
|
Michael
Keaton has always been a crowded house of an actor: pacing, restless,
his mind perpetually elsewhere. Think of his idea guy in Night
Shift, or, more recently, his distracted metro editor in
The Paper. Even as Batman, he suggested two personalities
at war with each other. So Keaton's new clone comedy, Multiplicity,
makes perfect sense. And it's a measure of his great talent that
four of him isn't too much.
Keaton is Doug Kinney, a construction manager caught in the classic
late-20th-century American dilemma: He can't balance his demanding
job and his equally demanding family life. The phrase "There
aren't enough hours in the day" was patented by people like
Doug. So was its companion phrase, "I need another me."
Multiplicity is about what happens when Doug gets what
he thinks he wants: more hours in the day and more Dougs.
A sympathetic geneticist (Scarface's Harris Yulin in a
neat double cameo) sees Doug's problem and offers to solve it.
Before long, Doug meets Doug 2, who assumes work duties while
Doug 1 takes over at home. Then Doug 1, exhausted by his kids
and panicked by his wife's (Andie MacDowell) urge to find her
own job, creates Doug 3 to take over at home while Doug 1 goofs
off. Meanwhile, Dougs 2 and 3 create their own clone -- Doug
4, a bad copy whose philosophy is "I like pizza."
Sound confusing? It might have been, if the versatile Keaton
weren't on board. Richard Edlund's seamless cloning effects are
amazing enough, but I still don't quite know how Keaton manages
to play off himself (and sometimes off three of himself)
so deftly. And he makes each Doug instantly identifiable. Doug
2, whose life consists entirely of work, is a babes-and-brewskis
guy. Doug 3 is a puppyish cross between Martha Stewart and the
Anal-Retentive Chef. Doug 4 ... well, he likes pizza. As for
the original Doug, he becomes blurry and indistinct, which is
the point: Doug is losing himself.
Multiplicity was directed by Harold Ramis, who has carved
out a useful comedy niche: fantasies dealing with identity crises.
(He had a hit in 1993 with Groundhog Day, which could
have been called Perpetuity.) Ramis' Animal House
co-writer, Chris Miller, devised the story and worked on the
script with Mary Hale, and then Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel
(Night Shift). Unlike four Keatons, maybe four writers
are too much. Certain intriguing ideas -- such as a clone thinking
that he's the original -- aren't developed, and the ending is
a bit too pat.
But those are nitpicks. Largely due to Keaton, the movie is consistently
funny, and one sequence in a restaurant made me laugh myself
into a mild headache. (Bring some aspirin.) And you really need
to see it on the big screen. At times, Ramis fills the frame
with all four Keatons, arguing and interacting. On video, in
a mangled pan-and-scan version, at least one Keaton will be left
out of your TV frame. The Keaton quartet is like a one-man Marx
brothers. His virtuosity in Multiplicity deserves to be
seen in its entirety. |
