Enemy (2013)

☆ ☆ ☆

Enemy (2013) – D. Villeneuve

History professor Jake Gyllenhaal sees a local film where an extra bears a strikingly similar (OK, identical) resemblance to him and decides to find that man (played by Jake Gyllenhaal).   I’m tempted to call this The Two Jakes…but I won’t; instead, they are Adam and his double, Anthony.  Although Adam is somewhat insecure and detached, Anthony is more assertive and aggressive.  Once they make contact, Adam is threatened and begins to fall apart.  Still, when Anthony attempts to steal his girlfriend, Adam finds himself drawn to Anthony’s pregnant wife.  Gyllenhaal does a solid job playing the two characters so they are distinguished only subtly rather than broadly.  The director, Denis Villeneuve, who made the topical thriller Incendies (2010), seems here to be deliberately trying to create a sense of foreboding and confusion (and the movie’s color scheme – yellow -- and Orwellian buildings of Toronto bear this out).  I’m not sure I was able to fully identify with the horror felt by Adam at finding his double nor “catch on” that he perceives Anthony to be his Jungian shadow (a reflection of his darker unconscious and sexual impulses, which seems plausible in retrospect).  And then, giant spiders.