The film stars Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore with Eileen Essell, Harvey Fierstein, Robert Wisdom, Justin Theroux and James Remar in supporting roles.

The seemingly perfect Brooklyn brownstone duplex has one flaw: Mrs. Connelly, an old Irish lady who lives on the rent-controlled top floor.

Nancy loses her job and Alex misses his deadline thanks to the old lady's antics, so they are trapped at home together with Mrs. Connelly with no place to go.

The real-estate scam had been run by the trio for several years, with Kenneth selling the ground-floor apartment to an unsuspecting, naive young couple, then Mrs. Connelly, aided by Dan, harassing the buyers, eventually forcing them to move out.

Finally, she fakes her own death so they will never suspect a thing, thus leaving them to collect and live off of the sales commission from the next unsuspecting buyers.

A final voice-over by the narrator relates that "Alex and Nancy's dream house may have been too good to be true, but did they live happily ever after?

[4] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two stars out of four and wrote that the "murder schemes aimed at Mrs. Connelly don't generate the laughter they should, maybe because no matter what she does, she still seems, irremediably, unredeemably, a sweet little old lady.

"[5] Barrymore earned a Golden Raspberry Award nomination for Worst Actress for her performances in both Duplex and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, but lost to Jennifer Lopez for Gigli.