Denis Villeneuve’s new film, Enemy, was actually filmed before last year’s Prisoners and – other than sustaining a single, predominant mood – has nothing in common with it except for the presence of Jake Gyllenhaal. Whatever commerciality Prisoners might have had is also absent here – unless commercial has suddenly become a synonym for intelligent, thoughtful, and simultaneously weird and deliberate.
Enemy opens with a shot of the Toronto skyline that seems hard and cold, then moves to a creepy underground club where we see a bearded man enter and watch a bizarre/repugnant sexual scenario that includes a tarantula being squashes under a woman’s high heel.
We cut to a more ‘normal’ sequence introducing Adam Bell (Gyllenhaal), a university history professor with a demeanor best described as milquetoast. He has somehow managed to wind up with a stunningly gorgeous blonde girlfriend, Mary (Mélanie Laurent, Now You See me). Watching them make love gives us the impression he’d rather be marking papers.
When he watches a local movie on a friend’s recommendation, he sees a familiar face in a bit part. Rewinding, he sees an actor who looks just like him. Exploration online reveals the actor to be Anthony St. Claire. We learn that Anthony has a blonde girlfriend, Helen (Sarah Gadon, World Without End), who looks enough like Mary to be unnerving – but she’s very pregnant.
Adam calls Anthony and it’s hard to tell who’s more unsettled. The call leads Helen to think Anthony is having an affair, but the truth is almost even harder to accept. When Adam arranges to meet Anthony, things take a bizarre turn.
Enemy is an exploration of intimacy, sexuality, connections of all kinds – with oneself, with other people, commitment – and the nature of identity. A very comedic cameo by Isabella Rossellini, as Adam’s mother, plays with Adam’s mind – and ours.
Although they are little more than adornments, Mary and Helen are certainly smarter and more perceptive than either Adam or Anthony. Despite evidence to the contrary, Adam and Anthony are not the same person – though they are very much opposites in a yin/yang way.
From the doomed tarantula on, there are moments of arachnid imagery and with it, the suggestion that our lives are part of a giant web and that we can shred the web by our actions – breaking the connections and commitments we’ve built up. There’s also the manner in which black widow females eat their mates…
Adapted by Javier Gullon from José Sarramago’s novel The Double, Enemy is a story that comes out of where and leaves us hanging at the end. Apparently, Gullon took more than a few liberties in his adaptation, so the book probably doesn’t offer much more in terms of resolution, either.
When I came out of the screening I attended, I thought it was Kafkaesque; another attendee cited David Cronenberg – especially Dead Ringers. Trying to slot Enemy into a category is, in the end, a bit of a mug’s game. It is an unnerving, scary thought-provoking exercise that lets Gyllenhaal stretch and gives us food for thought. I’m looking forward to seeing it again. It’s sure to reward multiple viewings.
Final Grade: A