Enemy (2013)People whose lives are empty will find escape in another's. Enemy (2013) is a psychological drama about an associate history professor named Adam Bell (Jake Gyllenhaal) who has become inured to a routine existence of work and domesticity--every day the same as the one before. After a co-worker suggests that he rent a movie called "Where There's a Will There's a Way", he glimpses an actor in a bit part who bears an uncanny resemblance to himself, and Adam becomes obsessed with tracking down his doppelganger, Anthony Claire (also Jake Gyllenhaal).
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Beneath Enemy is a pervading sense of dread and unease, mirroring the nervous Adam's state of mind, who is prone to mumbling and shuffling his feet. Adam is a quiet man, but the first word he speaks in Enemy is "control", describing assorted dictators to his history class. Control is at the heart of Enemy, and it is rarely something Adam has in any meaningful way. He has a beautiful girlfriend named Mary (Mélanie Laurent) who visits him every night, although their lovemaking has become monotonous--one more obligation that Adam has to fulfill. His mother (Isabella Rossellini) is a controlling shrew, who criticizes him by voicemail, and orders Adam to eat his blueberries (which he does not like) despite being an adult. Anthony is the polar opposite of Adam; although they look identical, their values and attitudes are distinct. In keeping with his profession, Anthony is more extroverted, and he is given to hedonistic sexual adventures; his pregnant wife, Helen (Sarah Gadon), has grown suspicious of his nocturnal activities. Unlike the buttoned-down, introverted Adam, Anthony takes risks, and rides around the city on a sportsbike; he even likes blueberries. Adam's interest in meeting his doppelganger comes from an unresolved need to explore a different facet of himself that he is too afraid to pursue first-hand. The first time the audience sees Anthony is when Adam dreams of a scene from "Where There's a Will There's a Way"--it is the first scene in Enemy that is devoid of the persistent, sickly yellow hue that permeates the film, a metaphor for Adam's stifled personality and anxiety. Revealing Anthony (who goes by the screen name of "Daniel Saint Claire") through Adam's dream implies that he might be nothing more than a fantasy of Adam's--an imaginary alter ego. It is Adam who is initially obsessed with tracking down his double; but after Adam makes contact, he becomes apprehensive and tries to back out. Conversely, Anthony becomes intrigued by the opportunities that come with swapping places with Adam after observes Adam's lovely girlfriend.
One reoccurring motif in Enemy is the juxtaposition of women and spiders that is simultaneously erotic and threatening. The high-rise apartment complex where Anthony and Helen reside resembles the shapely legs of a woman, and the multitude of wires draped above the streets are like a spider's web. The opening of Enemy depicts several men watching naked women performing on a stage, culminating with a tarantula being squashed by one woman's high-heeled shoe; it is a scene that is not immediately clear as to whether it is a dream or not. The juxtaposition of women, sex, and arachnids is designed not just to unsettle the audience but to represent Adam's fears and Anthony's fetishes, which are not mutually exclusive. Anthony has a fixation on high heels, and in the realm of Freudian psychology, this suggests a subconscious attraction to women with masculine characteristics. Adam's mother is a dominant woman, whose short-cropped hair and authoritarian tone of voice give her a masculine edge; it is suggested that Adam's upbringing under her has fostered his neuroses. Both men have beautiful blondes for lovers, although neither seem particularly excited about being with their respective partners. When the two men meet, it is in a remote hotel room--a strange rendezvous for two strangers, regardless of their physical similarities. Anthony implies that they were separated at birth, and concludes that they share the same scar, suggesting that they were conjoined twins. The two men lead divergent lifestyles, but share behavioral similarities, like how they use Google to investigate one another. When Anthony realizes how easily his wife mistook him for Adam, he dragoons Adam into posing as him to sleep with Mary, eager to indulge his adulterous urges. Meanwhile, Adam decides to see what it would be like to pretend to be Anthony, indulging in his own form of voyeurism. Their deception is a game they play with themselves to try to "outwit" the other women, although they are not as successful as they expected to be, returning to the motif that women are the force of authority and power in Enemy, and that men like Adam and Anthony are just flies in their subtle webs.
Recommended for: Fans of a doppelganger drama with Kafka-esque overtones that deals with themes like sexual anxiety, identity, and freedom from social conditioning. Enemy uses bold and discordant imagery as a metaphor for Adam's repressed fears and desires, adding a complex psychological component to the plot.
One reoccurring motif in Enemy is the juxtaposition of women and spiders that is simultaneously erotic and threatening. The high-rise apartment complex where Anthony and Helen reside resembles the shapely legs of a woman, and the multitude of wires draped above the streets are like a spider's web. The opening of Enemy depicts several men watching naked women performing on a stage, culminating with a tarantula being squashed by one woman's high-heeled shoe; it is a scene that is not immediately clear as to whether it is a dream or not. The juxtaposition of women, sex, and arachnids is designed not just to unsettle the audience but to represent Adam's fears and Anthony's fetishes, which are not mutually exclusive. Anthony has a fixation on high heels, and in the realm of Freudian psychology, this suggests a subconscious attraction to women with masculine characteristics. Adam's mother is a dominant woman, whose short-cropped hair and authoritarian tone of voice give her a masculine edge; it is suggested that Adam's upbringing under her has fostered his neuroses. Both men have beautiful blondes for lovers, although neither seem particularly excited about being with their respective partners. When the two men meet, it is in a remote hotel room--a strange rendezvous for two strangers, regardless of their physical similarities. Anthony implies that they were separated at birth, and concludes that they share the same scar, suggesting that they were conjoined twins. The two men lead divergent lifestyles, but share behavioral similarities, like how they use Google to investigate one another. When Anthony realizes how easily his wife mistook him for Adam, he dragoons Adam into posing as him to sleep with Mary, eager to indulge his adulterous urges. Meanwhile, Adam decides to see what it would be like to pretend to be Anthony, indulging in his own form of voyeurism. Their deception is a game they play with themselves to try to "outwit" the other women, although they are not as successful as they expected to be, returning to the motif that women are the force of authority and power in Enemy, and that men like Adam and Anthony are just flies in their subtle webs.
Recommended for: Fans of a doppelganger drama with Kafka-esque overtones that deals with themes like sexual anxiety, identity, and freedom from social conditioning. Enemy uses bold and discordant imagery as a metaphor for Adam's repressed fears and desires, adding a complex psychological component to the plot.