Travels are over- back to film criticism - Review of film ENEMY

Québec director Denis Villeneuve has certainly proven himself to be very eclectic in his choice of subjects so far. From Polytechnique about the University of Montreal massacre to Incendies nominated for an Oscar in 2011 to the recent very well received Prisoners  starring Jake Gyllenhaal and a scary Hugh Jackman to his more recent baffling offer, Enemy also starring Villeneuve's new muse Jake Gyllenhaal.
Honestly I still don't know what to make of Enemy.  I didn't dislike it but I didn't love it either. There are some things to admire about it and other things which are simply monotonous and frankly quite boring.  I would not qualify it as an entertaining film, certainly a challenging one which in this age of sugary confections which pass for movies can only be a good thing.  It reminded me of early David Lynch at his most opaque with a dollop of scary Cronenberg thrown into the mix.  Not a bad combination, certainly a very volatile one.

Based on Portuguese Nobel winner José Saramago's book The Double the story is a fairly straightforward one.  Adam Bell (Jake G.) leads a monotonous existence.  His life is an uninterrupted set of every day repetitive occurrences.  He takes the bus, teaches a course on history where he expounds on capitalism/power and how to maintain a stranglehold on the masses virtually verbatim with little passion or inclination to provoke discussion, walks back home, has semi-indifferent sex with his not quite live in girlfriend Mary and starts all over again the very next day.  It's your average mind numbing sad sack existence from which, seemingly there is no reprieve.  All this is filmed in a brown,beige,off white, sickly green palette accompanied by an ominous tonal music which portents of strange things to come.  As an aside I am getting very tired of this kind of sepia only tones creeping into so much of today's cinematography, I long for vibrant splashes of technicolor, in this film even the green of the grass or the trees is muted. It doesn't help that Toronto has never appeared this ugly or this forbidding. The endless towers dwarfing the life below them and the strange appearance of a giant billowing spider floating above the city do nothing to ease the spectator's unease.  Spiders and or a presumed arachnophobia are a component of the film which opens on an all male private sex club where spiders such as tarantulas are squashed by 8 inch heels, the act is suggested rather than carried out to its logical conclusion.

After viewing a film suggested by a colleague, Adam wakes up nagged by an image he has seen in the film.
Yes there it is, his exact doppelganger posing as a bell boy.  Adam is startled but at the same time suffused with unsuppressed excitement, finally something unusual happening in his life.  After some research he discovers the actor's name is Anthony St. Claire. Anthony has a pregnant wife named Helen.  The two end up meeting and their lives become entwined as each of their partners become pawns in a game of guess who this is although it's unclear if Helen knows or is just on a fishing expedition when she asks Adam posing as Anthony "how was class today?"  Personally I think that's a red herring meant to confuse and obfuscate.

There are a lot of shots of the actors pensively staring out into space.  The characters don't appear to react in what I would term "normal" ways.  Upon seeing Adam, Anthony's doppelganger  Claire doesn't immediately tell Anthony about it, instead she lies on the sofa mute, teary eyed and then finally accuses Anthony of "knowing about it."  It's all very meaningless and improbable as a reaction. Furthermore the characters don't actually talk to each other,they don't listen to music, they don't watch t.v. (how very mundane) they don't engage with any other characters (or ever so briefly) they don't eat, they have sex more as a penance than an actual joyful encounter....in short they merely exist to be captured in front of the camera as static and unwilling participants in their own dull existences.  Gyllenhaal is fine in both roles.  He captures the lumpy,bored professor Adam  and the swagger and intensity of the actor Anthony very well.  He can be both handsome and ordinary, that's his physical gift.
The women are also captivating both bringing vulnerability and strength to their respective roles Sarah Gadon  as Anthony's wife Helen is an especially luminous presence.

The film pulses with a menace which is never completely realized or fulfilled, as such it's more style than substance but the style does carry it along for most of its viewing. The film can be summed up as metaphysical  horror, more intellectual unease than actually physically frightening.  The alluded too reference of spider as woman one squishing the id of the male psyche (Anthony) the other inhibiting and power draining (Adam) could have been better explored instead of being given a rather oblique treatment forcing us to put the pieces together in ways that aren't always satisfactory. The end is either a joke or a grotesque in your face punch line, as for me I haven't decided yet which it is but the image does stay with you long after the film is over.