review for Duets on AllMovie

One of the most puzzling oddities of the fall 2000 movie season, this strange hybrid of a Robert Altman-style ensemble drama and a vaguely modern musical is put together ineptly, without the slightest regard for coherence. Helmed by TV stalwart Bruce Paltrow (whose Oscar-winning daughter Gwyneth Paltrow is one of the film's unfortunate leads), Duets is leaden and ill-conceived, and never finds the right tone for the proceedings. Its hapless mix of violence, family bonding, and karaoke becomes increasingly insufferable during the course of its nearly two-hour length. With the exception of the always affable Paul Giamatti, the cast flounders rather embarrassingly under Paltrow's crude direction, diluting what could have been an interesting misfire at the very least, even if it never reached the heights of a seriously reputable film. Bizarrely enough, Duets was apparently slapped with the dreaded NC-17 rating after completion, which led studio Hollywood Pictures to delay its release date for recutting. Eventually given an R rating, it was among the American premieres at the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival.