Enemy (2013)

[StevePulaski]

Enemy (2013)
Directed by: Denis Villeneuve

Jake Gyllenhaal meets Jake Gyllenhaal in the Jake Gyllenhaal-headlined film Enemy.

Rating: ★★½

NOTE: This film was recommended to me by longtime friend and former collaborator Danny C. for "Steve Pulaski Sees It," a yearly event where I take recommendations from readers.

I can remember it as if it was yesterday. Back in September 2013, I went to the theater with my mother on an unassuming Saturday morning to see Denis Villeneuve's latest film Prisoners. I saw it was getting nearly universal acclaim from critics and audiences. I purposely don't pay a great deal of attention to trailers, so I was still in the dark on what exactly the film was about. I emerged floored by its narrative twists and stellar performances, and went on to call Prisoners one of my favorite films of that year.

Writing the review and researching Villeneuve, I noticed he had another film premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival a week prior. That caught me off guard. The then-40-something Canadian director had pretty much put a bow on Prisoners and was making the rounds with another inventive thriller that would see a low-key theater/VOD release in March 2014. "What a workhorse," I thought. School and an already congested movie-schedule prevented me from seeing Enemy during its time of release, but the beauty of my yearly event "Steve Pulaski Sees It" is that I am often persuaded to see films I missed during their initial run. Since then, I've kept a close eye on Villeneuve, as have many others, who passionately adore his latest works Sicario, Arrival, and Blade Runner 2049, and are eager to do the same for the long-awaited, troubled adaptation Dune, set for a release later this year. He's one of the most intuitive directors among us, capable of telling a seemingly familiar story with an involving, sometimes nonlinear narrative and a keen eye for visuals.

Enemy is a strange breed. It's a psychological thriller that essentially lets you know early on that you're going to need the help of outside research in order to appreciate its subtleties. The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Adam Bell, a history teacher with a mundane life of grading papers and failing to live up to the expectations of his girlfriend Mary (Mélanie Laurent). He rents a film based on a colleague's recommendation and is particularly perturbed by an actor named Anthony Claire (also Gyllenhaal) who looks exactly like him. He spends his off-time scouring the web for info on the man, eventually going as far as to arranging a meeting, in the process worrying the man's wife Helen (Sarah Gadon), unnerved by an off-the-cuff interaction that Adam looks identical to her husband.

The two eventually meet and try to come to terms with the fact that they are physical replicas of one another. That's as far as the similarities go, however. Adam is a humbler, more reserved individual while Anthony is self-absorbed. Increasingly distraught, Adam vows to forget the whole interaction, but Anthony searches for something to get out of this ordeal. After all, he was essentially stalked. He proposes a deal involving Adam's girlfriend, where the ultimate difference in the men's personalities proves itself to be stark, adding more reservations to the mind of an already uncomfortable Adam.

Enemy thrives on a viewer's inability to understand what is going on entirely. A master of mise-en-scène capable of making every frame and inclusion in the narrative build to something unforeseen until it's right in your face, Villeneuve's seems to have everything hidden in plain sight. You don't realize it until you're sent a jolt at the end that makes you question the experience and leaves you with more fuel for your nightmares. Apropos to Adam and Anthony, you could assume they're two identical individuals — even bearing the same scar — existing in the same reality or you could argue they're two sides of the same person. I tend to lean towards the latter. Perhaps by allowing Anthony to court Mary, Adam justifies his own unfaithfulness. This is of course assuming he's caught in a vicious cycle of infidelity and is an unreliable protagonist all the more. Adam is, too, a history teacher, and is seen multiple times lecturing on totalitarian governments. The opening line of the film asserts that "chaos is order yet undeciphered," ostensibly suggesting the convolution of Adam's new world comes from his failure to iron out the interworkings of his own monotonous existence and realize he's being consumed by something he has no idea how to contain.

As you can see, Enemy leaves you liable to get you tangled in a web of swirling thoughts with contradicting outcomes. I'm still not sure the word salad above makes a modicum of sense. That's the pity of a film like this. It lacks concretion to the point where there's likely no incorrect interpretation. Ambiguity runs amok in many masterpieces, yet screenwriter Javier Gullón — loosely using José Saramago's 2002 novel The Double as the source material — throws one of the biggest curve-balls in the final moments that no one could blame audience members who threw their hands in the air in frustration after spending the bulk of the film trying to crack it. Where Prisoners followed through with a brutal twist that recontextualized the events that came before it, Enemy not only leaves you hanging but with little certainty that what you witnessed took placed in a conceivable reality. At a point, the mental gymnastics aren't worth it, even if its moodiness and sepia-toned cinematography is so attractive.

The much-discussed final moment is a relatable one, however. You finally believe you've changed, found the one you love in the process, and then are greeted with a giant black widow out of nowhere. A commentary on life in its purest form, really.

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jake Gyllenhaal, Mélanie Laurent, and Sarah Gadon. Directed by: Denis Villeneuve.