By Robert Scucci
| Published 13 seconds ago
Finding out that you have a long-lost twin sounds like exciting business, but what if you stumble across your doppelganger and find out there is 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 2013’s Enemy puts them at constant odds with one another.
Enemy is a fascinating watch because not only does Jake Gyllenhaal nail the dual role with an Eddie Murphy level of expertise, his characters are identical in every conceivable way, meaning you actually have to work for this one. We are not talking about one guy with a clean-shaven face and another guy with a beard as visual shorthand, but two people who could stand in for each other at a moment’s notice without anyone suspecting a thing.
Adam’s Obsession
Enemy first introduces us to Adam Bell, a history professor who mostly keeps to himself. Through the opening classroom montage, it becomes clear that he is a creature of habit and routine, and does very little outside of work beyond grading papers in the shared space he occupies with his girlfriend, Mary (Mélanie Laurent). Adam’s sense of monotony is completely disrupted when he watches a film called Where There’s a Will There’s a Way and spots a bellhop who looks exactly like him. Adam becomes obsessed with this actor, eventually discovering 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 searching for her husband. The call unsettles her immediately, not only because of the request, but because the two men sound identical. Anthony denies any involvement with Adam and brushes it off as a stalker trying to make contact. When Helen’s curiosity eventually gets the better of her, she tracks Adam down herself and is stunned by how perfectly he mirrors her husband.
Adam and Anthony finally meet, and it is not the kind of reunion you would ever want to write home about. First and foremost, they are not related in any meaningful way. They simply look identical. After their initial encounter, they begin having similar dreams involving giant spiders, imagery that stems from a trip one of them took to an underground sex club where a woman crushes a tarantula under her heel. Anthony, the more aggressive and domineering of the two, becomes convinced that Adam has slept with Helen and demands that he be allowed to do the same with Mary.
As identities and motives blur, Enemy becomes increasingly unsettling because Adam and Anthony are both experiencing their own personal crises while their carbon copy slowly infects their lives in different ways. What begins as a strange curiosity about finding one’s double quickly turns into a revolving door of manipulation and impropriety, 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 is striking how much Enemy feels pulled straight from the David Lynch playbook. Villeneuve, who would later make massive waves with his Dune adaptations, effortlessly taps into the kind of dreamlike surreality Lynch is best known for. Jake Gyllenhaal’s willingness to sit in that discomfort is just as effortless, and the effect is amplified by the cold, brutalist architecture that surrounds him across both identities.
Enemy is the kind of psychological thriller that forces you to stew in discomfort as you try to piece together what is actually happening between Adam and Anthony. It thrives on subtlety and ambiguity, and avoids leaning on the overused unreliable protagonist trick that dominates so much of the genre. The responsibility is on you to figure out what is real, what is symbolic, and what it all means. You may need to rewatch certain scenes, or even the entire film, to fully orient yourself. And if you ever receive a phone call from someone claiming to be your identical twin, just change your number. It is not worth the trouble.
Enemy is streaming on Max.