A Jaw Dropping Thriller That Will Make You Think Twice About Looking In The Mirror
Written by Robert Scucci | Published
Finding out that you have a long-lost twin sounds like exciting business, but what if you stumble upon your doppelganger and discover that there’s no blood relation at all? Even worse, what happens when you get to know each other and start messing with each other’s relationships? Jake Gyllenhaal’s Adam Bell and Anthony Claire know exactly what this is like, because in 2013 The enemy it makes them fight all the time.
The enemy it’s a fascinating watch because not only does Jake Gyllenhaal play a dual role with Eddie Murphy’s level of expertise, his characters are similar in every way imaginable, which means you really have to work for this one. We’re not talking about one guy with a shaved face and another with a beard as a visual shorthand, but two people who can stand up to each other for a second without the other suspecting anything.
The Life of Adam
The enemy first he introduces us to Adam Bell, a history professor who usually keeps to himself. Opening the montage class, it becomes clear that he is a creature of habit and routine, and does very little outside of work other than grading papers in the space shared with his girlfriend, Mary (Mélanie Laurent). Adam’s sense of monotony is completely disrupted when he watches a movie called Where There’s a Will There’s a Way and he sees a bellhop who looks exactly like him. Adam becomes obsessed with this actor, eventually finding out that his name is Anthony Claire and that he lives nearby after tracking him down through his talent agency.
Anthony’s wife, Helen (Sarah Gadon), receives a call from Adam, who is looking for her husband. The phone immediately confuses him, not just because of the request, but because the two men sound alike. Anthony denies any involvement with Adam and dismisses him as someone he is trying to hook up with. When Helen’s curiosity finally gets the better of her, she tracks Adam down and is surprised by how well he looks at her husband.
Adam and Anthony finally meet, and it’s not the kind of reunion you want to write home about. First and foremost, they are unrelated in any meaningful way. They just look the same. After their first encounter, they start having similar dreams involving giant spiders, an image from a trip one of them takes to an underground sex site where a woman crushes a tarantula under her heel. Anthony, the more aggressive and domineering of the two, is convinced that Adam slept with Helen and demands that he be allowed to do the same with Mary.
As identities and motivations fade, The enemy it becomes uncomfortable as Adam and Anthony both experience their own personal problems while their carbon copy slowly creeps into their lives in different ways. What begins as a strange curiosity to find a double turns into a revolving door of deception and inadequacy, with consequences that threaten to destroy their relationships, reputations, and sense of self.
Denis Villeneuve At His Most Lynchian
Written by Javier Gullón and directed by Denis Villeneuve, it’s surprising how much money The enemy feels pulled straight from David Lynch’s playbook. Villeneuve, who would later make waves with his adaptation of Dune, effortlessly tapped into the kind of dreamlike surrealism Lynch is best known for. Jake Gyllenhaal’s determination to dwell on that discomfort is not easy, and the effect is amplified by the cold, brutal construction that surrounds him in both identities.
The enemy it’s the kind of psychological thriller that forces you to binge eat as you try to piece together what’s going on between Adam and Anthony. It thrives on subtlety and ambiguity, and avoids relying on the overused dishonest character trick that dominates much of the genre. The onus is on you to figure out what is real, what is symbolic, and what it all means. You may need to re-watch certain scenes, or the entire movie, to fully understand. And if you get a call from someone claiming to be your identical twin, just change your number. It’s not worth the trouble.
The enemy broadcasts to Max.
