"Chaos is order
yet undeciphered."
2014 was a good year for fans of doppelganger cinema.
Richard Ayoade featured Jesse Eisenberg in dual roles in The Double and Denis Villeneuve does the same with Jake Gyllenhaal
in Enemy. Villeneuve earned rave
reviews for Incendies, which earned
an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. The notoriety caught
Hollywood's attention and Villeneuve made a big debut with Prisoners, an epic thriller starring Gyllenhaal and Hugh Jackman.
Enemy is a much
smaller and intimate drama, loosely based on a novel by Jose Saramago.
Villeneuve transplants the action from Portugal to Toronto and casts Gyllenhaal
as history professor Adam Bell. Bell leads an uneventful life. He rarely goes
out and gives the same lectures (dictatorships, totalitarianism) again and again
to a sparse group of students. Even sex with his girlfriend Mary (Mélanie
Laurent) seems to be perfunctory. One day, a colleague recommends Adam check
out a movie titled Where There's a Will,
There's a Way. To his shock, Adam notices a background character that looks
exactly like him. After much research, Adam learns his duplicate is Anthony
Claire, an actor based in Toronto. After several awkward phone conversations,
Adam and Anthony set a meeting.
Any further revelations of the plot would spoil the film.
Suffice to say, the lookalikes switch places to see how the other lives. Let's
just say, this isn't The Prince and the
Pauper. There's no happy ending and nobody learns a valuable lesson.
If Prisoners was
an extended episode of Law & Order,
Enemy could be described as a lost
episode of Twin Peaks with a dash of
David Cronenberg to spice it up. "Enemy" is an enigmatic picture that
offers plenty of questions and no answers. This is the type of film that is
ripe for discussion and multiple interpretations. The movie opens with an
unsettling scene in which Anthony attends an underground erotic club involving
women crushing tarantulas with their stiletto heels. Imagery of spiders and
webs is a recurring theme within Enemy,
perhaps as a metaphor for the way in which the twins have been ensnared by the
women in their lives. Or maybe it's a symbol for the totalitarian governments
Adam lectures about. Again, Villeneuve never spells it out for you.
The connection between Adam and Anthony is never made clear
either. Is it a cosmic fluke or are the two simply related by blood? A sit-down
with Adam and his mother (Isabella Rossellini) almost points to the latter.
Gyllenhaal turns in a pair of great performances as Adam and
Anthony. The dual roles are certainly reminiscent of Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers. Gyllenhaal is understated
as Adam giving him a slight slouch and a subtle uneasiness. As Anthony, he's
bolder and more confident. Sarah Gadon, who has been popping up in both David
and Brandon Cronenberg's pictures, has the most substantial female role in Enemy as Anthony's pregnant wife Helen.
She gives a quiet performance that conveys a world of sadness and desperation.
Enemy might not
appeal to an audience seeking conventional cinema. This one is for the arthouse
crowd. Villeneuve has crafted an eerie, thought-provoking thriller anchored by
the engrossing performances of Gyllenhaal and Gadon.
Rating: *** (*****)
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