At the risk of blatantly repeating ourselves,
Jake Gyllenhaal and director
Denis Villeneuve are on the cusp of a banner 2013 that is about to hit its crest. Their first-unveiled collaboration, the harrowing,
Fincher-with-more-emotional-resonance crime thriller
Prisoners has already bruised audiences in
Telluride and
Toronto (
read our review here). But if Prisoners is the grimmest studio film youve seen since
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, then
Enemychronologically
their first collaborationis the equally dark but more experimental and arty cousin. And a terrifically haunting one at that.
Imagine the
Paul Thomas Anderson of
There Will Be Blood making a
Brian De Palma movie, or
Claire Denis directing
Christopher Nolans
Memento. While those superlatives do give you a taste of the striking, sensual disposition simmering in the French-Canadian filmmakers engrossing and provocative psychological thriller, it actually does a disservice to Villeneuves superb craft and darkened vision that truly has coalesced into something extraordinary this year.
Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered, the opening titles menacingly state before the movie emerges from black and then burrows down into the dark subconscious. A faithful yet distinctive adaptation of
José Saramago's "
The Double," Villeneuves second festival drama stars Jake Gyllenhaal in a bewitching dual role as an increasingly paranoid teacher who believes he's found his exact doppelganger. The actor stars as Adam Bell, a disheveled and sullen university lecturer who is living in isolated, self-loathing despair. In a threadbare and inadequately lit Toronto apartment, Adam grades papers and only stops to have animalistic sex with the comely girlfriend (
Mélanie Laurent) whom he otherwise seems disinterested in. A random conversation with a colleague leads Adam
to rent a recommended movie and within, on the edges of the frames, in a bit part, he sees himself. Or at least what appears to be his perfect twin. Shocked and disturbed, Adam begins to frantically investigate who this lookalike might be, and through online searches discovers the identical man to be Anthony Clair (Gyllenhaal again), a struggling actor living in the badlands of Mississauga (a dispiriting ghetto suburb on the outskirts of Toronto). Curious, fearful and strangely excited, Adam begins to shadow Anthony from afar, and even comes in contact with his doppelganger's pregnant, estranged wife (a standout
Sarah Gadon) while searching for clues. When Adam reaches out to his mother (
Isabella Rossellini) with this disconcerting revelation, in hopes that she may have some light to shed or a family secret to finally unveil, she proves to be of little help.
Increasingly frayed and troubled by this discovery, Adam eventually attempts to engage Anthony and when they finally meet face to face, the two menalready suffering from the pains of their ailing relationshipsbecome bizarrely connected and dangerously conjoined. Are they lost twins? Each others somehow-connected other half? As the
picture digs deeper into the pair's uneasy mental turmoil, it hypnotically delves into the unconscious of the two men and how their sexual desires are more inexorably linked than they could ever imagine.
Thick with weighty themes, disquieting portent and anxious tension, Villeneuvethe Foreign Language Academy-Award nominated director of
Incendiescrafts a gripping slow burn portrait of the male id/ego, our self-destructive tendencies and how they control us. Deeply in sync with his directors tenebrous dream, Gyllenhaal obviously carries the entire film on his shoulders, and he delivers with a smoldering internalized performance of torment that is easily his finest work. The conflicted men are distinct, but its the nuanced, strange similarities between them and their own personal agonies that make for a remarkably committed turn by the young actor.
With apologies to
David Cronenberg, never has Toronto looked so grand and yet so ill and claustrophobic. Transforming the city into an existential wasteland (clearly influenced by the depressing fringes of Mississauga), cinematographer
Nicolas Bolducs sickly muted palette envelopes the movie in a distressing, cigarette-stain yellow (the film also boasts some of the most genuinely uncomfortable aerial cityscape shots seen in some time). Musically, the exciting on-the-rise composer duo of
Danny Bensi and
Saunder Jurriaans (
Martha Marcy May Marlene,
Simon Killer") bring an atonal A-game of discordant cellos and oblique half notes that would make
Jonny Greenwood proud, and keeps the movie tilted on its discomfiting axis.
Part existentialist thriller, part psychosexual drama, Enemy, like Villeneuves earlier festival film, is exceptionally dark, harrowing, and especially engrossing. Those that have seen Prisoners can attest to the methodical, hyper-attuned clinician Villeneuve has become in his approach to genre, and Enemy has the same quivering pitch of masterful meticulousness. Not only is Enemy once again first-rate filmmaking, its profoundly unnerving. A challenging, sometimes abstract piece of work, Enemy doesnt reveal itself easily, but its coiling ouroboros quality is fascinating and spellbindingly disturbing. A riveting examination of intimacy (and the lack thereof), identity, duality and the nether regions of our unconscious desires, Enemy is a transfixing grand slam that certifies Villeneuve as the real deal and one of the most exciting new voices in cinema today.
[A]
