Multiplicity is a 1996 comedy film, starring Michael Keaton and Andie MacDowell. The film was co-produced and directed by Harold Ramis. The original music score was composed by George Fenton.
Doug Kinney (Michael Keaton) finds his time stretched to the limit between his wife, career and family, until he meets a scientist who offers to clone him. Of course, one clone ends up not being enough and soon he has an attic full of them - all played by Keaton and each with a different personality - while his unsuspecting wife Laura Kinney, (played by Andie MacDowell) wonders what on earth is going on.
Synopsis
In the movie, Michael Keaton's character, Doug Kinney, is a construction worker whose work is in constant conflict with his family. On one job to build a new wing of a scientific facility, Doug meets up with Dr. Leeds, a scientist who has developed a successful means for cloning humans, and is introduced to Dr. Leeds' clone as proof. The scientist, who is sympathetic to Doug's troubles, allows Doug to make a clone of himself that can take over for him at work, while he tries to spend some quality time with his family. The clone, called "Two" (while having all the knowledge, memory and experience of Doug), turns out to be overly macho and easily irritated, suffering a residual personality quirk of the cloning process.
Eventually two more clones are made. "Three", in sharp contrast to two, is extremely sensitive and thoughtful ("Two" considers him a 'wuss'). "Four" is cloned from "Two", and has the mentality of an overly-curious child. Unfortunately since he is a clone-of-a-clone, his IQ is considerably lower than that of his predecessors, since the personality defects are more pronounced when a clone is cloned (The analogy from the movie refers to how a copy of a copy may not be as 'sharp' as the original), and this causes an annoyed Doug to decree a moratorium on cloning. One night Doug leaves home for a business trip. While Doug is gone each of the clones run into Laura and each one sleeps with her. The next day "Two" comes down with a cold and can't go to work, so he sends "Three". As "Three" goes to work not knowing a thing about construction, an inspection on site is on that day. "Three" unimpresses the inspector which leads to him losing Doug's job.
As the movie progresses, Doug's wife becomes increasingly upset with her husband, not realizing that many times she is speaking to a clone. After she pours out her heart to "Four", mentioning how he (Doug) has never kept his promise on fixing the house, she asks him what he wants and is unromantically told "I want pizza". Upset, she takes the children to live with her parents. When Doug returns he learns that Laura and the kids have left. He also learns from the clones' confessions that he has lost his job and each one of them have slept with Laura. Trying to figure out how to get Laura back, "Four" tells him about what she said to him on how he never fixed the house. With the help of the clones, Doug remodels the house and wins back the love of his wife. With their purposes served, the three clones move away, later writing Doug that they have set up a successful pizzeria called "Three Guys from Nowhere". "Two" becomes the business man of the shop and serves customers, "Three" is the chef and "Four" is the delivery boy as well as taking a second job as a paperboy (It's shown in the end of the film that he tosses a pizza box at a nearby house in the style of a paper boy throw)
Cast
DVD
The film was first released to DVD on April 15, 1998, shortly after the format debuted; the Columbia/Tri-Star release was a single disc release featuring the ability to watch the film either in widescreen or in fullscreen but not featuring any bonus materials. Since then, a new Columbia/Sony release has replaced it, offering only Pan & Scan (1.33 aspect ratio) format. Widescreen support is still available on Region 2 editions of the movie.
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References