Enemy (2013)

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Writers:  Jose Saramago (Novel), Javier Gullon
Cast:       Jake Gyllenhaal, Melanie Laurent, Sarah Gadon

A man seeks out his exact lookalike after spotting him in a movie.

Denis Villeneuve is a director who uses the color tones well to add to the visual story telling. 'Incendies' had a blue tint whereas 'The Prisoners' had a grey one conveying the grim nature of the story. I liked Incendies but thought the prisoners had glaring plot holes. He is one director who is not afraid to depict really outlandish plots hoping to carry it through how well immersed the viewer can be in the viewing experience. So how much you rate the film will depend a lot on how well you enjoyed whilst watching it so that you could suspend your disbelief which is needed very much. 

Enemy is also no different with him going for the color tone similar to another one of Jake Gyllenhaal film 'Zodiac'.  It is a twist on the multiple personality disorder which is a genre in itself in film industry. Contrary to most other films in this genre we as audience realize pretty much from the get go what is going on. When it happened I was going like 'Oh no! Not another one of these'. Then my focus went on to keeping a watch on which all characters are together in a scene, when one interacts with another whether the third one is present on the screen and so on. I was sincerely hoping that the director would add another twist to show they are different people which I think is fair to expect from a Denis Villeneuve film if you go by the twist in 'Incendies'. The director takes this twist and finally does a reverse flip by ending it again on the Schizophrenic reality of the situation. The ending which alludes that it was all in his head might be disingenuous to many viewers going by the reviews, but I thoroughly enjoyed as it is a self aware play on the genre. I also loved the end credits.

It was good to see Melanie Laurent in it (Shohsanna from Inglorious Basterds) and Jake Gyllenhaal picks good solid films to act in.The film was adapted from Jose Saramago's novel 'The Double'.

Rating: 5/5