surrealist
Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...
psychological thriller
Psychological thriller is a Film genre, genre combining the thriller (genre), thriller and psychological fiction genres. It is commonly used to describe literature or films that deal with psychological narratives in a thriller or thrilling setting ...
film directed by
Denis Villeneuve
Denis Villeneuve Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, OAL (; ; born October 3, 1967) is a Canadian film director and screenwriter. He has received seven Canadian Screen Awards as well as nominations for four Academy Awards, five BAFTA Awards, and two ...
and produced by M. A. Faura and
Niv Fichman
Niv Fichman (; born 1958) is an Israeli Canadian, Israeli-Canadian film producer, actor, and director.
Some of the films he has produced include ''Passchendaele (film), Passchendaele'', ''Blindness (2008 film), Blindness'', ''Silk (2007 film), S ...
. Written by Javier Gullón, it was loosely adapted from
José Saramago
José de Sousa Saramago (; 16 November 1922 – 18 June 2010) was a Portuguese people, Portuguese writer. He was the recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony The Double''. The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal">The Double (Saramago novel)">The Double''. The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal in a dual role as two men who are physically identical, but different in personality. Mélanie Laurent, Sarah Gadon, and
Isabella Rossellini
Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini (; born 18 June 1952) is an Italian actress and model. The daughter of Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and Italian film director Roberto Rossellini, she is noted for her successful tenure as a Lancôme ...
co-star. It is an international co-production 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 (film), The Fifth Estate'' was selected as the opening film and ''Life of Crime (film), Life o ...
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...: Celebrat ...
At an underground club, a man attends an erotic show which culminates with a naked woman about to crush a live
tarantula
Tarantulas comprise a group of large and often hairy spiders of the family Theraphosidae. , 1,100 species have been identified, with 166 genera. The term "tarantula" is usually used to describe members of the family Theraphosidae, although ...
under her high-heel.
Adam Bell, a college history professor, lives a quiet, monotonous life in
Toronto
Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...
. 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 playing a
bellhop
A bellhop (North America), or hotel porter (international), is a hotel employee who helps patrons with their luggage while checking in or out. Bellhops often wear a uniform, like certain other page boys or doormen. This occupation is also know ...
. Searching online, Adam identifies the actor as Anthony 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 Twin Last Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two ...
. 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 is a Canadian city in the province of Ontario. Situated on the north-western shore of Lake Ontario in the Regional Municipality of Peel, it borders Toronto (Etobicoke) to the east, Brampton to the north, Milton to the northwest, ...
, 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. They meet in a hotel room, where the two discover 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 then to 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. A shattered car window forms the pattern of a
spider web
A spider web, spiderweb, spider's web, or cobweb (from the archaic word ''Wikt:coppe, coppe'', meaning 'spider') is a structure created by a spider out of proteinaceous spider silk extruded from its spinnerets, generally meant to catch its prey ...
.
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 shouts to Helen that he's going out, but he hears no response. 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.
dual role
A dual role (also known as a double role) refers to one actor playing two roles in a single production. Dual roles (or a larger number of roles for an actor) may be deliberately written into a script, or may instead be a choice made during produc ...
Isabella Rossellini
Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini (; born 18 June 1952) is an Italian actress and model. The daughter of Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and Italian film director Roberto Rossellini, she is noted for her successful tenure as a Lancôme ...
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.
Christopher Nolan
Sir Christopher Edward Nolan (born 30 July 1970) is a British and American filmmaker. Known for his Cinema of the United States, Hollywood Blockbuster (entertainment), blockbusters with complex storytelling, he is considered a leading filmma ...
's '' Memento'', and called it an "engrossing Kafka-esque provocative psychological thriller" that "doesn't reveal itself easily".
Both director Villeneuve and leading actor Gyllenhaal spoke of their desire to make the film a challenging exploration of the subconscious.Interview: Jake Gyllenhaal Talks The Duality Of 'Enemy' And Why He Wants You To Be Confused Alex Suskind, ''The Playlist'', Indiewire, 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 (: elves) is a type of humanoid supernatural being in Germanic peoples, Germanic folklore. Elves appear especially in Norse mythology, North Germanic mythology, being mentioned in the Icelandic ''Poetic Edda'' and the ''Prose Edda'' ...
"
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 ro ...
'' 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
Totalitarianism is a political system and a form of government that prohibits opposition from political parties, disregards and outlaws the political claims of individual and group opposition to the state, and completely controls the public sph ...
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
Box office
''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.
Critical response
''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 (January 20, 1946 – January 16, 2025) was an American filmmaker, visual artist, musician, and actor. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Lynch was often called a "visionary" and received acclaim f ...
. It has a 72% approval rating on
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, 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 ...
, based on 121 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 an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
, based on 30 reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences surveyed by
CinemaScore
CinemaScore is an American market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts from the data.
Background
Ed Mintz, who ...
gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.
A. O. Scott
Anthony Oliver Scott (born July 10, 1966) is an American journalist and cultural critic, known for his film and literary criticism. After starting his career at ''The New York Review of Books'', '' Variety'', and ''Slate'', he began writing film ...
, movie critic for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', 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."
Awards and nominations
''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...: Celebrat ...
Library and Archives Canada
Library and Archives Canada (LAC; ) is the federal institution tasked with acquiring, preserving, and providing accessibility to the documentary heritage of Canada. The national archive and library is the 16th largest library in the world. T ...