Denis Villeneuve
Denis Villeneuve (; born October 3, 1967) is a Canadian filmmaker. He is a four-time recipient of the Canadian Screen Award (formerly Genie Award) for Best Direction, winning for '' Maelström'' in 2001, '' Polytechnique'' in 2009, ''Incendies ...
and produced by M. A. Faura and
Niv Fichman
Niv Fichman ( he, ניב פיכמן; born 1958) is an Israeli-Canadian film producer, actor and director.
Some of the films he has produced include '' Passchendaele'', ''Blindness'', ''Silk'', '' Long Day's Journey into Night'', ''The Red Violi ...
. Written by
Javier Gullón
Javier Gullón (born 1975) is a Spanish screenwriter.
Biography
Javier Gullón was born in Logroño in 1975.
He garnered a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 2nd Canadian Screen Awards for '' Enemy'', and two ...
, it was loosely adapted from
José Saramago
José de Sousa Saramago, GColSE ComSE GColCa (; 16 November 1922 – 18 June 2010), was a Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony ith which hecon ...
Jake Gyllenhaal
Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal (; ; born December 19, 1980) is an American actor. Born into the Gyllenhaal family, he is the son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, and his older sister is actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. He ...
in a dual role as two men who are physically identical, but different in personality.
Mélanie Laurent
Mélanie Laurent (; born 21 February 1983) is a French actress, filmmaker, and singer. The recipient of two César Awards and a Lumières Award, she is an accomplished actress in the French film industry. Globally, she is best known for her rol ...
,
Sarah Gadon
Sarah Lynn Gadon (born April 4, 1987) is a Canadian actress. She began her acting career guest-starring in a number of television series, such as '' Are You Afraid of the Dark?'' (1999), '' Mutant X'' (2002), and ''Dark Oracle'' (2004). She also ...
, and
Isabella Rossellini
Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini (born 18 June 1952) is an Italian-American actress, author, philanthropist, and model. The daughter of the Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and the Italian film director Roberto Rossellini, she is noted ...
co-star. It is an
international co-production
A co-production is a joint venture between two or more different production companies for the purpose of film production, television production, video game development, and so on. In the case of an international co-production, production companie ...
of companies from Spain, France and Canada.
''Enemy'' premiered in the Special Presentation section at the
2013 Toronto International Film Festival
The 38th annual Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) took place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada between September 5 and 15, 2013. '' The Fifth Estate'' was selected as the opening film and '' Life of Crime'' was the closing film. 75 films were ...
on 8 September. Upon its wide release by A24 on 14 March 2014, the film earned $3.4 million at the box office and received positive reviews. ''Enemy'' earned ten nominations at the
2nd Canadian Screen Awards
The 2nd Canadian Screen Awards were held on March 9, 2014, to honour achievements in Canadian film, television, and digital media production in 2013.Best Director for Villeneuve, and
Canadian Screen Award for Best Supporting Actress The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television presents an annual award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role to the best performance by a supporting actress in a Canadian film.Maria Topalovich, ''And the Genie Goes To...: Celebrati ...
for Gadon. It was named Best Canadian Film of the Year at the
Toronto Film Critics Association Awards 2014
The 18th Toronto Film Critics Association Awards, honoring the best in film for 2014, were awarded on December 15, 2014.
Winners
References
{{TFCA Awards Chron
2014
File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up suppli ...
.
Plot
A man attends an erotic show at an underground club, which culminates with a naked woman on the verge of crushing a live
tarantula
Tarantulas comprise a group of large and often hairy spiders of the family Theraphosidae. , 1,040 species have been identified, with 156 genera. The term "tarantula" is usually used to describe members of the family Theraphosidae, although m ...
under her platform high-heel.
Adam Bell, a college history professor, lives a quiet, monotonous life in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...
. He rents a film, ''Where There's a Will There's a Way'', on the recommendation of a colleague, and spots an actor who looks strikingly like himself, briefly, in the film as a
bellhop
A bellhop (North America), or hotel porter (carrier), porter (international), is a hotel employee who helps patrons with their luggage while check-in, checking in or out. Bellhops often wear a uniform (see bell-boy hat), like certain other Page (a ...
. Searching online, Adam identifies the actor as Anthony Claire, whose stage name is Daniel Saint Claire. Adam rents the other two films in which Anthony has appeared and becomes obsessed with the man, who appears to be his physical
twin
Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of TwinLast Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two em ...
. Immediately afterwards, Adam searches some boxes in his own house and finds a photo of someone who looks like himself, with a woman's hand over his shoulder. However, part of the photo is torn out, making the woman impossible to identify.
Adam stalks Anthony, visiting his talent agency, where he is mistaken for Anthony and given a confidential letter. Discovering Anthony's apartment in
Mississauga
Mississauga ( ), historically known as Toronto Township, is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is situated on the shores of Lake Ontario in the Regional Municipality of Peel, adjoining the western border of Toronto. With a popu ...
, Adam calls the home, but reaches Anthony's pregnant wife, Helen. She also mistakes Adam's voice for Anthony's and assumes it's a joke, but Adam insists he is not Anthony. This frightens Helen, and Adam abruptly ends the call.
Adam calls again later and reaches Anthony, who assumes Adam is a stalker and tells him not to call again. Helen confronts Anthony about the phone call and Adam's existence, but Anthony insists he knows nothing. Unconvinced, Helen researches Adam, discovers the college where he teaches, and finds him. Helen is visibly stunned at his exact resemblance to her husband, though Adam does not realize who Helen is.
Anthony eventually calls Adam, and they agree to meet in a hotel room, where they discover that they are perfectly identical, even having the same scar. Adam is taken aback by Anthony's direct personality, says the meeting was a mistake, and swiftly departs. The two men begin having similar dreams, or perhaps the same dream, featuring first a naked woman with a spider's head, and later a giant skyscraper-sized spider walking amidst the buildings of the city where they live.
The next day, Anthony is now stalking Adam. He sees Adam's girlfriend, Mary, whom he finds attractive. Anthony plots to accuse Adam of sleeping with his wife, and shame and manipulate Adam into letting him sleep with Mary to 'get even'. He demands Adam's clothes and car keys for a night, after which he promises to disappear forever. Adam complies. Anthony impersonates him and takes Mary to the hotel.
Meanwhile, Adam goes to Anthony's apartment in retaliation, and is let inside. The building concierge desperately asks 'Anthony' to take him back to the underground sex club. Inside the apartment, Adam finds a framed photo on a shelf which looks like the one he had found earlier in his own house, but now the photo is intact, and the woman is revealed to be Helen. Adam tries to act as Anthony in front of Helen, but it appears that she recognizes his nicer demeanor. She pretends not to notice and cuddles with him. Later that night, however, Helen wakes to find Adam crying and apologizing; she tells him she prefers him and asks him to stay, then has sex with him.
Back at the hotel, Mary panics during sex when she notices Anthony's wedding-ring mark and asks who he really is. Anthony claims he has always had the mark. She forces Anthony to drive her home; the two get into a fight in the car which results in a high-speed crash, presumably killing them both.
The next day, Adam dresses in Anthony's clothes and finally opens the confidential letter received earlier. He finds the key to the underground sex club, given only to select members. He resolves to go there, and tells Helen that he's going out, but she doesn't respond. As he enters the bedroom, he sees, instead of Helen, a room-sized tarantula cowering against the rear wall. Adam, with a resigned look, sighs.
Cast
*
Jake Gyllenhaal
Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal (; ; born December 19, 1980) is an American actor. Born into the Gyllenhaal family, he is the son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, and his older sister is actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. He ...
as Adam Bell and Anthony Claire
*
Mélanie Laurent
Mélanie Laurent (; born 21 February 1983) is a French actress, filmmaker, and singer. The recipient of two César Awards and a Lumières Award, she is an accomplished actress in the French film industry. Globally, she is best known for her rol ...
as Mary
*
Sarah Gadon
Sarah Lynn Gadon (born April 4, 1987) is a Canadian actress. She began her acting career guest-starring in a number of television series, such as '' Are You Afraid of the Dark?'' (1999), '' Mutant X'' (2002), and ''Dark Oracle'' (2004). She also ...
as Helen Claire
*
Isabella Rossellini
Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini (born 18 June 1952) is an Italian-American actress, author, philanthropist, and model. The daughter of the Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and the Italian film director Roberto Rossellini, she is noted ...
as Mother
*Kedar Brown as a security guard
*Darryl Dinn as the video store clerk
*Joshua Peace as Carl, Adam's colleague
*Tim Post as Anthony's concierge
*Misha Highstead, Megan Mane, Alexis Uiga as the Ladies in the Dark Room
*Jane Moffat as Eve (uncredited)
* Stephen R. Hart as Bouncer (uncredited)
Production
Principal photography began on 22 May 2012 in Toronto.
Analysis
A review in
Indiewire
IndieWire (sometimes stylized as indieWIRE or Indiewire) is a film industry and review website that was established in 1996. The site's focus was predominantly independent film, although its coverage has grown to "to include all aspects of Holl ...
compared the film to
Christopher Nolan
Christopher Edward Nolan (born 30 July 1970) is a British-American filmmaker. Known for his lucrative Hollywood blockbusters with complex storytelling, Nolan is considered a leading filmmaker of the 21st century. His films have grossed $5&nb ...
Kafka-esque
Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typ ...
Indiewire
IndieWire (sometimes stylized as indieWIRE or Indiewire) is a film industry and review website that was established in 1996. The site's focus was predominantly independent film, although its coverage has grown to "to include all aspects of Holl ...
, 11 March 2014. Retrieved 2018-05-24. To Villeneuve, ''Enemy'' is ultimately about repetition: the question of how to live and learn without repeating the same mistakes.
Regarding the two physically identical characters, Villeneuve hints:
"You don't know if they are two in reality, or maybe from a subconscious point of view, there's just one. It's maybe two sides of the same persona … or a fantastic event where you see another
elf
An elf () is a type of humanoid supernatural being in Germanic mythology and folklore. Elves appear especially in North Germanic mythology. They are subsequently mentioned in Snorri Sturluson's Icelandic Prose Edda. He distinguishes "ligh ...
"
Gyllenhaal says that ''Enemy'' is "about a man who is married, his wife is pregnant, and he’s having an affair. He has to figure himself out before he can commit to life as an adult."
Forrest Wickman of ''
Slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
'' points out that the opening line of the film, "Chaos is order yet undeciphered", is from the José Saramago novel ''The Double'', on which the film is based. Wickman suggests that ''Enemy'' is "a parable about what it's like to live under a totalitarian state without knowing it," and adds that the central irony is that even though the main character is an expert on the ways of totalitarian governments, he does not see the web that has overtaken the city until he is already stuck in it. To Wickman, ''Enemy'' suggests that this tendency to create totalitarian regimes is part of human nature, that it comes from within us, citing Villeneuve:
"Sometimes you have compulsions that you can't control coming from the subconscious … they are the dictator inside ourselves."
Reception
''Enemy'' received generally positive reviews from critics, with many critics comparing the movie's style and atmosphere to the works of
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946) is an American filmmaker, visual artist and actor. A recipient of an Academy Honorary Award in 2019, Lynch has received three Academy Award nominations for Best Director, and the César Award for Be ...
. It has a 71% approval rating on
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...
, based on 122 reviews, and a rating average of 6.6/10. The site's consensus states: "Thanks to a strong performance from Jake Gyllenhaal and smart direction from Denis Villeneuve, ''Enemy'' hits the mark as a tense, uncommonly adventurous thriller." The film also has a score of 61 out of 100 on
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, based on 30 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
A. O. Scott
Anthony Oliver Scott (born July 10, 1966) is an American journalist and cultural critic. He has been chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' since 2004, a title he shares with Manohla Dargis.
Early life
Scott was born on July 10, 1966 in ...
, movie critic for ''The New York Times'', wrote: "In any case, much of the fun in "Enemy," which is tightly constructed and expertly shot, lies in Mr. Gyllenhaal's playful and subtle performances... Its style is alluring and lurid, a study in hushed tones and yellowy hues, with jolts of anxiety provided by loud, scary music." ''Enemy'' was also praised by David Ehrlich of Film.com for having "the scariest ending of any film ever made."
''Enemy'' opened in a single theater in North America and grossed $16,161. Expanding later, the widest release for the film was 120 theaters. It ended up earning $1,008,726 domestically and $2,388,721 internationally for a total of $3,397,447.
''Enemy'' earned ten nominations at the
2nd Canadian Screen Awards
The 2nd Canadian Screen Awards were held on March 9, 2014, to honour achievements in Canadian film, television, and digital media production in 2013.Best Director for Villeneuve, and
Canadian Screen Award for Best Supporting Actress The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television presents an annual award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role to the best performance by a supporting actress in a Canadian film.Maria Topalovich, ''And the Genie Goes To...: Celebrati ...
Library and Archives Canada
Library and Archives Canada (LAC; french: Bibliothèque et Archives Canada) is the federal institution, tasked with acquiring, preserving, and providing accessibility to the documentary heritage of Canada. The national archive and library is t ...