Enemy (2014)

Film: Enemy (2014)
Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Melanie Laurent, Sarah Gadon, Isabella Rossellini
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

I have become mildly obsessed with the career of Denis Villeneuve in recent years.  As you may remember, I gave him the OVP Award for Foreign Film in 2010 for his riveting work with Incendies, but was largely cool on what was going on in Prisoners (though, again, was obsessed with what I loved and hated about that movie, so the man can make a picture that gnaws).  This is certainly the case with his most recent work, which stars another artist to obsess over, and leaves you with far more questions than answers.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about two men who are completely identical in every way except personality.  Adam (Gyllenhaal) is a college professor with a boring but fulfilling life (he and his wife have a routine but frequent love life if the opening scenes are any indication), who one day stumbles across a man who is identical to him in every physical way.  Slowly they begin to infiltrate each other's lives, with Anthony (also Gyllenhaal, and the other guy) finding this an opportunity for mayhem, while Adam slowly wants nothing to do with the situation.  As the film unfolds, we see Anthony trying seduce Adam's wife, and dying in a car crash as a result, while Adam starts to assume Anthony's life, only to, in one of the oddest scenes of 2014, have his new wife turn into a spider that is somehow afraid of him.

The film is difficult, and not something that you can fully comprehend upon initial viewing, at least in my opinion.  I had to let the movie ruminate a bit before I started to piece together things about the film.  For starters, the spider sequence shouldn't come as a huge surprise, as we've seen two bizarre sequences with spiders earlier in the film: one, in the opening scene, in an erotic club where a woman crushes a woman with a platform heel, and in the middle of the film, when a giant spider is seen wandering around the skyline of Toronto.  Both of these scenes are outside the realm of the actual plot of the film, which is why they're easy to dismiss, but it makes total sense that they meld in the end, likely with us either not realizing that the spiders have taken over the world (perhaps these people assume such things) or because one of our protagonists (Adam) has been the villain all along.

Forest Wickman of Slate magazine talked about how this film in many ways is "what it's like to live in a totalitarian state without knowing it."  I rather enjoyed this reading of the film in some ways, but I think it's worth exploring a bit further: I think that it may be the case that it is not the characters, but the audience who doesn't realize that we're in a totalitarian state (sorry-the film is really short and so reliant on mood and ideas that this review is about to turn into a bit of an academic criticism).  Think about it-Adam isn't at all surprised by the emergence of a spider from his new wife, but we are.  In fact, throughout the film there seems to be little acknowledgement of the spiders that are seemingly bursting forward from around the city, but it's we the audience who ignore these signs.  While it may additionally be a situation where the film is perplexing Adam and his surroundings (we never get a reasonable answer as to why the two men are identical, and it's not long lost twins as they have identical scars, which wouldn't be possible for identical twins), let's not lose that Villeneuve may be pushing us as an audience-giving us the ultimate shock that we've been suckered by this conquered world.

Those are really my thoughts on this complicated, fascinating movie that poses far more questions than answers (though I love those sorts of movies), short though they may be.  What about you-did you love or hate this movie (I could see people being in both camps)?  Does anyone else want to give a gold star to Jake Gyllenhaal's agent for continually making these fascinating movies?  And anyone have guesses on the answers for this film?  Share your thoughts in the comments!