TIFF Movie Review – Enemy (2013)

Timid and distracted academic Adam is advised to watch a movie by a colleague and in doing so discovers his doppelganger named Anthony; curiosity goes from renting all of the performers’ films to posing as him to get access to his home address.  A phone call by Adam leads to the wife of the actor being shocked by the similarity.  Anthony arranges to meet Adam in a hotel room where the situation spirals out of control.

A recurring image is of a tarantula as well as spider webs.  Heightening the sense of that something is not quite right is the yellow green colour pallet and the concrete urban landscape.  A cool shot is one of the wires hanging above a streetcar which pans down onto the public transit vehicle.  A ground level look up shot turns a motorcycle and its driver into a menacing image which later appears in a neat highway shot while passing a car driven by character of Adam.  The sound design and musical score help to further the sense of psychological disorder.

Jake Gyllenhaal (Zodiac) makes the most of playing both parts by emphasizing subtle rather than dramatic differences through posture and attitude.  There is no room for error as the supporting cast is minimal which means Gyllenhaal is almost in every single shot.  Mélanie Laurent (Now You See Me) and Sarah Gadon (A Dangerous Method) admirably portray respectively a girlfriend and pregnant spouse who get caught in the middle of a dangerous mind game.     

It is hard not to think of Fight Club (1999) with the green and yellow footage, the secret club, psychological trickery, and urban setting.  The switch in pursuer is a good narrative shift, and the incorporation of black flashes between some scenes effectively simulates a fractured mental state.  However, the symbolism gets in the way of storytelling resulting in the concluding image being confusing rather than a brilliant twist.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★