Light but weighty comedy-fantasy whose fruit-salady color conceals crunchy, protein-rich nutmeats. The premise is founded on something recognizably real: the shortage of time in the average day. The next step, really quite a leap, is mere expedience. Our harried construction executive pitches a fit in front of an altruistic geneticist who, lo and behold, has developed the technology to clone him, or as the executive more accurately restates it, to Xerox him -- one of him (the duplicate) to take care of business, another (the original) to attend to family and self. When even two are not enough, a third is provided, to specialize in housework when the housewife goes into real estate. The easy-to-swallow postulate that the copies, though identical to the original at the outset, will develop their own divergent personalities insofar as their experiences differ is also founded on recognizable realities: that every personality has its different facets, that behavior varies according to circumstance, that the secretary doesn't know the same man as the wife. The complications that arise in the course of events are logical, likely, and cleverly resolved, though there are never enough of them to probe below the tip of the iceberg. The mind reels under the possibilities. (Imagine it: a Doppelgänger who shares your memory bank down to the last thin dime. Imagine the potential for raillery, if not blackmail, if not murder.) In that respect, as well as the overall light-but-weighty respect, as well as the specific repetition-and-variation respect, the movie is a fitting companion to the same director's -- Harold Ramis's -- Groundhog Day. Jorge Luis Borges for groundlings. With Michael Keaton, Andie MacDowell. (1996) — Duncan Shepherd
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