O Homem Duplicado

Enemy is the latest thriller from Canadian director Denis Villeneuve, and it stands as a hybrid mix of David Lynch and David Fincher at their very finest. Enemy follows Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal) on a journey to find his exact lookalike named Anthony, a terrible D-list celebrity. As his investigation deepens, the mystery thickens and he is thrown into a fray way above his head. What works in Enemy is Gyllenhaal's fearless performance as a man who is searching to find who he really is. There are a couple scenes that he has where is truly riveting and it becomes so hard to take your eyes off the screen. It really is an explosive yet very contained performance that I feel needs a lot of recognition. Enemy marks itself as a film about identity and never knowing who you truly are and the pressures of wanting to become something you're not. While it remains as a heavy message, it still makes for a film that almost demands repeat viewings. At 90 minutes even, the film moves and never slows down enough for us to even breathe. Before we can even question what is going on in one scene, Villeneuve throws us another curve ball to contend with. While that may bring confusion to many people, it is very welcoming to a viewer in the mood to do some serious thinking. Anything beyond that, it may garner some negative responses especially if you're not paying close attention. Enemy works well as a psychological thriller, bringing some of the most disturbing images I've seen on screen in recent years. This film is NOT scary, but it is extremely uneasy and very creepy, especially towards the last twenty minutes of the film, which had me holding my breath as we finally discover the truth of what is going on.

Overall, this is one hell of a film that really does almost require a second (and possibly a third) viewing. I highly recommend it, especially to fans of David Lynch's Eraserhead. The images are memorable, the performances are very well rounded and this is just a very very well done film.

What made Denis Villeneuve's "Enemy" most interesting was that it didn't end how I expected it to. Throughout much of the movie I kept thinking "I know exactly where this is going," but it didn't go like that. It's not a great movie, but I thought that it was worth seeing. I saw a connection to Villeneuve's "Incendies", in which the son and daughter of an immigrant from an unidentified Arab country try to find out their family history and get an unpleasant surprise (I viewed the movie as a look at the roots of Arab Spring). The less said about Villeneuve's disgusting "Prisoners", the better.

So while it's not a masterpiece, it's still a fun, mind-bending movie. I've never read any of José Saramago's work but now I'd like to. Jake Gyllenhaal and Mélanie Laurent (Shoshana Dreyfuss in "Inglourious Basterds") have been making a lot of good movies.

Denis Villeneuve garnered a lot of attention for his mainstream success with PRISONERS, starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal, but it was it smaller, more obscure release that I wanted to see. ENEMY was released around the same time as PRISONERS but never saw a national release and I had to wait for the home video release to finally catch it. Watching it, I figured out why it never went mainstream. Most general audiences don't like something they can't understand, and ENEMY is probably best described as a mental cluster fu…mess. It has a surface plot that's easy enough to understand but the film is loaded with symbolism and deeper themes. Most of which can't be discussed without entering spoiler territory so I won't touch on it much, but this is a movie that inspires discussion or…at the very least…will leave you contemplating it long after it ends. I know my first viewing led to two days of thought trying to decipher what I'd seen and it wasn't until I scoured the Internet, reading over the frustration of others and the myriad of proposed meanings, that I felt I'd come to an understanding. But that's me and my obsessive nature, and others can do their own research. On the surface, ENEMY is about history teacher Adam Bell (Gyllenhaal). Adam is suggested a film from a work colleague that he might enjoy and becomes obsessed when an extra in the film looks exactly like him. He tracks the actor down, Anthony (also Gyllenhaal), and discovers they're physically identical in every way. And then it gets weird.

At first impression, ENEMY is a very depressing film. It's incredibly dark with lots of shadows and harsh lighting, and the entire movie has this bizarre yellow tint to it. Everything is has an unnerving yellow sickness to it. And the characters…well, no one is happy here. Adam is a depressing little man. He doesn't say much and he's very socially awkward. He's got a beautiful girlfriend named Mary (Mélanie Laurent) but there's some unknown tension between the two of them. She seems to come to his barren apartment every night and the two of them spend a minimal amount of time together before moving to the bedroom, and she always seems to leave in anger or exasperation when it's through. Anthony is more outgoing, more confident. He's married to a beautiful woman (Sarah Gadon) in a crumbling marriage racked with previous infidelities on his part. She seems hopeful that he's changed but the recent events where he hides his meeting with Adam have her wondering if he's returned to old habits. Everyone's pretty miserable but Adam finds hope for something interesting when he encounters his doppelganger. Whatever it was that piqued his interest, it fades fast as the two come face-to-face and Adam immediately regrets it. Anthony immediately moves to do what pretty much any one of us would probably do if we discovered we had an exact duplicate somewhere in the world with a beautiful girlfriend.

The surface plot is simple enough but there is so much more boiling beneath the surface of ENEMY. Honestly, I'd seen it twice and couldn't quite piece it together on my own. I only came to full understanding after doing some additional searching around the web for interpretations. I didn't have to do all the supplemental research. The movie's was perfectly fine as a piece of head-scratcher entertainment. I wanted to do it. I found ENEMY so enthralling that I wanted to know more. It's a very slow moving movie and spends most of the first half establishing the atmosphere and building the suspension but then it grabs you and you can't stop watching because you're so interested in seeing how it'll all play out. At least, I was. Jake Gyllenhaal is amazing in the dual role. I was impressed with Sam Rockwell in Duncan Jones' MOON but Rockwell was essentially playing the same character interacting with itself. Gyllenhaal invests such seamless separate personalities into Adam and Anthony that they truly feel like two individual men. He's done an incredible job with ENEMY and I hope he gets some accolades for it. Mélanie Laurent isn't given much as Mary, but Sarah Gadon is undeniably sympathetic as Anthony's pregnant, hopeful wife Helen. Every involved brings their best to the table, making ENEMY one of the better hidden gems I've found in the past year's independent film selection. It's not going to be a film for everyone but anyone who enjoys a film that leaves you contemplating it after the credits roll should give ENEMY a chance.

Adam Bell (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a history professor at UGT in Toronto. He lives a tired monotonous life with his girlfriend Mary (Mélanie Laurent). On a recommendation, he rents a movie and finds a bit actor named Daniel Saint Claire who looks exactly like him. After some searching, he finds that Daniel's real name is Anthony Claire and he's married to the pregnant Helen (Sarah Gadon).

Adam's life is tired and boring. I get that point. In fact, I get that point within the first five minutes. It needs to move faster to get to the heart of the movie. It's an unnecessarily slow start. Once it gets going, this has a nice sense of paranoia and unrealism. Everything including the setting, the props, the music, the grayish tones, and the brutal architecture gives off a weird 70s hyper-unreal feel to the movie. Then there is the spider thing. I'm fine with not able to explain it myself. It may be better that there is no easy resolution. I can live off of the mood of the movie by itself.

In Toronto, the college professor of Politics Adam Bell (Jake Gyllenhaal) lives a routine life with his girlfriend Mary (Mélanie Laurent). One day, he watches a rented DVD and sees an obscure supporting actor very alike to him and Adam becomes obsessed find him out. He discovers that his name is Anthony Claire and he is married with Helen (Sarah Gadon), who is six-month pregnant. Adam meets Anthony but soon he realizes that it was a mistake since his counterpart has put his eyes on Mary. Soon their lives become entwined.

"Enemy" is not a good movie, but has an intriguing story by José Saramago. For me, a good movie is able to present the story with neither the need of reading the novel not researching explanation in Internet. "Enemy" is a movie where the viewer needs to watch with attention, seek explanation in Internet (for example, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9AWkqRwd1I provides a good explanation of the movie) and watch it again. Therefore the screenwriter fails in his script. Anyway it is intriguing and when you see it for the second time, it is worthwhile. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Homem Duplicado" ("The Duplicated Man")