Enemy
2013
**½
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mélanie Laurent, Sarah Gadon, Isabella Rossellini, Kedar Brown, Joshua Peace
Adam Bell is a sad-sack history teacher who is in a loveless relationship. One day he discovers Anthony Claire, a failed movie actor with a pregnant wife, who looks and sounds exactly like him. Is the man his twin brother or is he going insane? And what's with all the spiders? Javier Gullón's screenplay is based on The Double by José Saramago. Like Blindness, also based on Saramago's book, this is an intriguing parable but an incredibly frustrating drama. The script is such a tightly constructed psychological puzzle that the people at the centre of it never get a chance to resemble actual human beings. The female characters get the shortest shrift and I must admit I had trouble telling Adam and Anthony apart.
