Duplicity (soundtrack)

Duplicity (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Film score by James Newton Howard
Released	March 24, 2009
Recorded	2008–2009
Studio	Sony Scoring Stage, Sony Pictures Studios, Culver City, California Conway Recording Studios, Los Angeles James Newton Howard Studios, Santa Monica, California
Genre	Film score
Length	50:36
Label	Varèse Sarabande
Producer	James Newton Howard
James Newton Howard chronology
Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) Duplicity (2009) The Last Airbender (2010)

Duplicity (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the film score composed by James Newton Howard to the 2009 film Duplicity directed by Tony Gilroy starring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen. The original score is composed by James Newton Howard and performed by the Hollywood Studio Symphony conducted by Pete Anthony. The film score was released on March 24, 2009, under the Varèse Sarabande label and featured Howard's score and one song "Being Bad" performed by the trip hop duo Bitter:Sweet. ^{[1] [2]}

Track listing

All tracks are written by James Newton Howard, except where noted.

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Artist(s)	Length
1.	"War"			4:06
2.	"Following Claire"			2:00
3.	"Security Meeting"			2:49
4.	"Split to Rome"			2:30
5.	"Tully's Letter"			1:52
6.	"The Ghost"			2:48
7.	"Rome Hotel"			1:38
8.	"Back to the Unit"			1:44
9.	"Split to London"			0:47
10.	"The Frame Up"			2:27
11.	"Split to Miami"			0:49
12.	"Miami Hotel"			1:02
13.	"Share My Fire"			1:27
14.	"Bench Mark"			0:36
15.	"Safe House"			2:19
16.	"Split to Cleveland"			0:48
17.	"The Formula"			5:50
18.	"San Diego Airport"			1:24
19.	"A Cream or a Lotion?"			1:40
20.	"Airport Love"			1:55
21.	"The Real Setup"			3:12
22.	"Played"			1:48
23.	"Duplicitá a Due"			2:05
24.	"Being Bad"	Shana Halligan Kiran Shahani	Bitter:Sweet	3:00
Total length:				50:36

Reception

Christian Clemmensen of Filmtracks noted that "the album's 50 minutes are extremely disjoined due to the inherent schizophrenia that exists because of the film's constantly shifting gears." ^[3] Eric Schneider of AllMusic wrote "Howard forgoes an orchestral score and opts for a collection of songs that mix rock and world-beat sounds". ^[4] Jonathan Broxton of Movie Music UK wrote "Although Duplicity is a world away from the sophisticated orchestral writing we are used to hearing from Howard in recent years, it has a certain je ne sais quoi that makes it a thoroughly enjoyable listening experience, especially for those whose tastes encompass jazz and world music as much as the classical style." ^[5] James Southall of Movie Wave wrote "Decent though it is, personally I’d rather Howard stuck to just being himself." ^[6]

Thomas Glorieux of Maintitles.net wrote "Basically there is nothing wrong with Duplicity. It is lovely, covers a bunch of highlights if you really love detail in your music and quite frankly, this is easy to like and listen to music. But we are not simple people. We want class in whatever score and we want the best in whatever situation. So in that regard Duplicity is just good and decent. If it would have deleted some 25 minutes of music, it would have even been a better experience." ^[7] Todd McCarthy of Variety called it a "vibrant, nicely spiced score", ^[8] while Simon Brew of Den of Geek described it "a bright score". ^[9] David Edelstein of New York wrote "James Newton Howard's brassy score gives the illusion of momentum even when the frames are inert." ^[10]

Tom Huddelston of Time Out wrote "James Newton Howard’s overbearing beats ’n’ strings soundtrack is never more than David Holmes-lite". ^[11] Kimberley Jones of The Austin Chronicle noted it to be "aggressively frenetic". ^[12] David Chen of /Film wrote "James Newton Howard's jazzy score for Duplicity even sounds similar to [John] Powell's [Mr. & Mrs] Smith score in more than one spot". ^[13] Dana Stevens of Slate described it as a "witty retro-Hitchcock-ian score". ^[14]

Personnel

Credits adapted from liner notes: ^[15]

• Music composer and producer – James Newton Howard
• Musical arrangements – Stuart Michael Thomas
• Auricle programming and control systems – Richard Grant
• Synth programming – Chris P. Bacon, Stuart Michael Thomas
• Pro-tools operator – Erik Swanson
• Sound engineer – Braden Kimball, Matt Ward
• Recording – Alan Meyerson, Ed Cherney
• Mixing – Alan Meyerson
• Mastering – Patricia Sullivan Fourstar
• Music editor – Erik Swanson, Nick Ratner, Mick Gormaley
• Music supervisor – Brian Ross
• Studio assistant – Cory Roberts
• Scoring crew – Adam Michalak, David Marquette, Greg Loskorn, Mark Eshelman, Seth Waldmann, Simon Heeger
• Copyist – Joann Kane Music Service
• Music librarian – Mark Graham
• Executive producer – Robert Townson

Orchestra

• Performer – Hollywood Studio Symphony
• Orchestrators – Brad Dechter, James Newton Howard, Jeff Atmajian, Pete Anthony
• Conductor – Pete Anthony
• Orchestra contractor – Peter Rotter, Sandy De Crescent
• Orchestra coordinator – Pamela Sollie
• Orchestra leader – Roger Wilkie

Instruments

• Brass – Jerry Hey
• Bandoneon – Marcelo Nisinman
• Bass – Bruce Morgenthaler, Christian Kollgaard, Drew Dembowski, Edward Meares, Michael Valerio, Nico Carmine Abondolo, Susan Ranney
• Cello – Andrew Shulman, Anthony Cooke, Armen Ksajikian, Cecilia Tsan, Chris Ermacoff, Dane Little, David Speltz, Dennis Karmazyn, Erika Duke, John Walz, Paul Cohen, Paula Hochhalter, Steve Erdody, Timothy Landauer
• Clarinet – Donald Foster, Ralph Williams
• Drums – Vinnie Colaiuta
• Electric bass – Abe Laboriel, Sr.
• Electric upright bass – Michael Valerio
• Flute – Geraldine Rotella, James Walker
• Guitar – Odair Assad, Sérgio Assad, George Doering, Mike Landau
• Harp – Gayle Levant
• Horn – Brian O'Connor, David Duke, James Thatcher, Mark Adams, Phillip Yao, Richard Todd
• Percussion – Alex Acuña, Robert Zimmitti, Luis Conte, Michael Fisher, Peter Limonick, Satnam Ramgotra
• Piano – James Newton Howard, Joseph Rotondi
• Saxophone – Dan Higgins, Joel Peskin
• Trombone – Alex Iles, Andrew Thomas Malloy, Bill Reichenbach, Steve Holtman
• Trumpet – Gary Grant, Wayne Bergeron
• Viola – Andrew Duckles, Brian Dembow, Darrin McCann, David Walther, Denyse Buffum, Jennie Hansen, Keith Greene, Marlow Fisher, Matthew Funes, Mike Nowak, Pam Goldsmith, Robert Berg, Roland Kato, Shawn Mann, Steven Gordon, Thomas Diener, Vicky Miskolczy
• Violin – Aimee Kreston, Ana Landauer, Anatoly Rosinsky, Bruce Dukov, Endre Granat, Eun-Mee Ahn, Haim Shtrum, Henry Gronnier, Irina Voloshina, Jackie Brand, Jeanne Skrocki, Josefina Vergara, Julie Ann Gigante, Katia Popov, Kenneth Yerke, Kevin Connolly, Lisa Sutton, Marc Sazer, Miwako Watanabe, Natalie Leggett, Phillip Levy, Radu Pieptea, Rafael Rishik, Richard Altenbach, Roberto Cani, Roger Wilkie, Sara Parkins, Sarah Thornblade, Serena McKinney, Sungil Lee, Tammy Hatwan

Management

• Album direction – David Buntz
• Director of film scoring – Tiffany Jones
• Executive in charge of music – Harry Garfield, Kathy Nelson
• Music business affairs – Phil Cohen

Accolades

Award	Category	Recipient(s) and nominee(s)	Result	Ref.
ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards	Top Box Office Films [a]	James Newton Howard	Won	[16] [17]
International Film Music Critics Association	Best Original Score for a Drama Film		Nominated	[18] [19]

Notes

1. also for Confessions of a Shopaholic

References

1. Howard, James Newton (March 24, 2009). "Duplicity (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)". Bandcamp. Archived from the original on May 21, 2021. Retrieved September 2, 2025.
2. Reynolds, Rachel (June 20, 2011). "Shana Halligan: Local Artist We Love". KCRW . Archived from the original on November 28, 2020. Retrieved September 2, 2025.
3. Clemmensen, Christian (March 29, 2009). "Duplicity (James Newton Howard)". Filmtracks . Archived from the original on April 2, 2009. Retrieved September 2, 2025.
4. Schneider, Eric. "Review: Duplicity [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]". AllMusic . Archived from the original on February 20, 2023. Retrieved September 2, 2025.
5. Broxton, Jonathan (March 21, 2009). "DUPLICITY – James Newton Howard". MOVIE MUSIC UK. Archived from the original on February 6, 2011. Retrieved September 2, 2025.
6. Southall, James (September 24, 2009). "Duplicity". Movie Wave. Archived from the original on September 21, 2015. Retrieved September 2, 2025.
7. Glorieux, Thomas. "James Newton Howard: Duplicity". Maintitles.net. Archived from the original on February 7, 2020. Retrieved September 2, 2025.
8. McCarthy, Todd (March 19, 2009). "Duplicity". Variety . Archived from the original on March 14, 2017. Retrieved September 2, 2025.
9. Brew, Simon (March 16, 2009). "Duplicity review". Den of Geek . Archived from the original on September 19, 2020. Retrieved September 2, 2025.
10. Edelstein, David (March 20, 2009). "Duplicity". New York . Archived from the original on March 25, 2009. Retrieved September 2, 2025.
11. Huddelston, Tom (March 17, 2009). "Duplicity" . Time Out . Archived from the original on November 13, 2024. Retrieved September 2, 2025.
12. Jones, Kimberley (March 20, 2009). "Movie Review: Duplicity". The Austin Chronicle . Archived from the original on April 8, 2020. Retrieved September 2, 2025.
13. Chen, David (March 20, 2009). "Movie Review: Duplicity - Like Mr. & Mrs. Smith, But With A Brain". /Film . Archived from the original on August 9, 2025. Retrieved September 2, 2025.
14. Stevens, Dana (March 19, 2009). "Pretty Confusing". Slate . ISSN   1091-2339. Archived from the original on November 25, 2023. Retrieved September 2, 2025.
15. James Newton Howard. Duplicity (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (Media notes). Varèse Sarabande.
16. Morris, Chris (June 25, 2010). "ASCAP honors for film, TV". Variety . Archived from the original on April 30, 2021. Retrieved August 3, 2025.
17. Bennett, Ray (October 13, 2010). "Coldplay Wins Top Honors at ASCAP Awards". The Hollywood Reporter . Archived from the original on August 3, 2025. Retrieved August 3, 2025.
18. IFMCA (2010). "2008 IFMCA Awards". IFMCA. Archived from the original on January 15, 2011. Retrieved May 1, 2020.
19. Pond, Steve (January 29, 2010). "Michael Giacchino Leads Film Score Nominations". TheWrap . The Wrap News Inc. Archived from the original on June 18, 2021. Retrieved May 1, 2020.