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Revisiting the Ending of Denis Villeneuve’s Enemy , Spiders and All

Ever watched the end of a movie and thought, “I have no idea what I just watched?” Vulture is here for you! We’ll be going back and taking a look at some notable endings in film, trying to explain what happened, why, and what it all really means. Previously in this series, we covered the ending of Donnie Darko .

When Enemy came out in 2014, Denis Villeneuve was in between phases. He’d just done Prisoners , the project that marked his transition from the critically revered Canadian films Polytechnique and Incendies into Hollywood proper, but he had yet to make Sicario and Arrival , the two movies that would solidify him as one of the best directors currently working.

In a certain sense, Enemy , a loose adaptation of José Saramago’s The Double , is an excellent harbinger of what Villeneuve had on deck. Like Sicario and Arrival , Enemy is a saturated film, every moment practically dripping with suggestion; in the case of Enemy , that suggestion is of menace, danger, and calamity inching ever closer, frame by frame. Villeneuve is a master of mise-en-scène, and in Enemy , just as much as the two later movies he’d be lauded for, there’s an incredible consistency and intensity to his vision. From the brutalist architecture of the University of Toronto Scarsborough campus to the crisscrossing wires of the streetcars to the sepia-heavy color schemes to the camera, which dollies beautifully through the entire film, every element in front of Villeneuve’s lens helps build a sense of dread and foreboding.

By this point, if you know anything about Enemy , you’re like, “Cool, we get it, Villeneuve’s good — but what about the spiders?” We’ll get there. But it’s important to establish the context for this incredibly bizarre movie, a movie that would be strange had it been made by the most Lynchian of independent filmmakers, but is even stranger coming from a guy who’s since been entrusted with the reins of a franchise .

Enemy is about a man, played by Jake Gyllenhaal. His name is Adam Bell, and he teaches history, and he looks really bummed out. Something isn’t sitting right with this guy. He moves through the world like it’s about to eat him, shoulders hunched and face hangdog, and even the fact that he has a beautiful sorta-girlfriend, Mary, played by Melanie Laurent, seems more like a burden than a source of joy. Maybe it’s what he’s teaching — dense theory, Hegel and Marx, the patterns of history and the relationship of dictators to control; maybe it’s the weird spider-party we see him at in the first scene, filled with a bunch of guys who look like they’re enjoying the entertainment way too much. What are they watching? Well, it appears to be a woman masturbating, and then another woman stepping on a tarantula with a high heel. You could see how that would take a toll on even the most cheerful of men, and something about Adam’s vibe gives the sense that he’s never been Mr. Sunshine.

But wait: Is it Adam at the spider party? Because soon after we meet him, a colleague suggests he watch a film called Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way . (Adam’s first response is, “I don’t really like movies.” Fun guy!) When Adam checks it out, he discovers that there’s an actor in it who looks exactly like him. And by exactly like him, I don’t mean they look exactly alike like your mom thinks you look exactly like Tom Cruise: I mean they both have the good fortune to be played by Jake Gyllenhaal. A little sleuthing by Adam reveals that this guy is an actor who goes by the alias Daniel Saint-Clare but is in fact named Anthony Clare, and he has a very pregnant wife, Helen, played by the superb Sarah Gadon.

The rest of the film unfolds as follows: Adam introduces himself to Anthony; Anthony tells him to fuck off, then decides that, actually, they should meet; Anthony blackmails Adam into letting him take Mary on a romantic getaway, where he has sex with her in a motel; Adam goes to Anthony’s apartment, where he pretends to be Anthony and has sex with his wife, only, in this case, it’s Helen who initiates it, knowing that he isn’t her husband; Mary then realizes that Anthony isn’t Adam, demands that they leave, and on the way home, they get in a car crash and die; and then Adam walks into Anthony’s bedroom to find that Helen has transformed into a giant spider. Fin .

So! This terrific, elliptical film, one of the best and most underrated of the last few years, leaves us with two fundamental mysteries: Who are Adam and Anthony? And what’s the deal with all the spiders?

Who are Adam and Anthony?

Let’s start with what we do know: Adam and Anthony are two different people, at least to some extent. At multiple points, the film just avoids confirming this for us. When Helen calls Anthony after encountering Adam at the his work, he picks up just as Adam disappears into a building. Adam and Anthony appear together twice, but only by themselves, with no witnesses. When Anthony talks to Helen on the phone, Adam isn’t home. (Adam talks to Anthony again when Helen is around, but that time, she doesn’t speak to him — and moreover, she accuses Anthony of lying about whom he was talking to.) Because of all this, there’s the slightest possibility that somehow, one man could be living a bifurcated life. We don’t really know how Anthony spends his days while Adam’s at school, and Adam’s relationship with Mary seems to be somehow irregular or inconsistent, dovetailing with the general sense that Anthony’s had an affair before.

But the major sign that the two men exist separately comes when Mary notices a mark on Anthony’s finger from his wedding ring, which he’d taken off before going to see her. That mark is significant: It’s what leads to the fight with Mary that culminates in their deaths, an event that also appears to be confirmed as real based on a report on the radio the next morning. (Although apart from the ring thing, you could make a strong argument that Adam could’ve projected his own vision onto that event, turning it into the death of Anthony, a creation of his psyche.) If Anthony’s finger bears that mark, and she’s just noticing it for the first time, that means Anthony and Adam are different people. However, it’s hard to tell just when they became separate people. Both share the same scar on their chest; short of the two of them having been identically maimed early in their lives, that scar indicates some kind of shared life.

Here’s where things get weird. Adam’s name is noteworthy; you might remember that, in the Book of Genesis, Adam, the first man, was created in the likeness of God. God then took a rib from Adam and using it made Eve. Adam and Anthony’s scars are on their rib cage.

Following this train of thought, we might hypothesize that at some point, Anthony was made from Adam, fully formed but subtly different, and the two then went about separate lives: one meek and self-conscious, the other cocky and volatile. While this is, obviously, not a scientific or verifiable explanation, art doesn’t have to be scientific or verifiable, thank God. This interpretation gains some added credibility from the sense that they seem to share a mother. When Adam goes to see his mother, she believes he likes blueberries, which he denies; meanwhile, Anthony gives Helen an entire lecture on blueberries, particularly organic ones, and the importance of having them around for his smoothies. (That also gives a pretty good sense of what Anthony’s like as a dude.) His mother references his “nice apartment,” a term that could not in good conscience be applied to the place where Adam lives — Anthony confirms as much when he visits, calling it, if I remember correctly, “a shithole” — but would accurately describe Anthony’s place. She also mentions that he can’t commit to one woman, even though both Adam and Anthony appear to be in relationships, and references his acting career, which she wouldn’t know about unless she was just really into local Canadian cinema — or he, Anthony, told her.

In conclusion: Adam and Anthony are different, but seem to have sprung from the same being. Based on the names and the movie’s point of view, Adam would be the best guess for who came first, but hey: Only Isabella Rossellini knows for sure.

What’s the deal with all the spiders?

Oh, man. This nut’s a little harder to crack, but let’s give it a try. Spiders, namely tarantulas, appear in a few different scenes. In the opening, either Adam or Anthony (more on that in a sec) visits the aforementioned sex dungeon/zoological society, where a woman in a high heel is poised to crush a tarantula while Adam/Anthony looks on through his fingers. Two more dreamlike images follow. In one, a naked woman walks down a hallway past Adam/Anthony, her head replaced by an arachnoid head; and in the other, enormous spiders straddle Toronto, looking like a Canadian War of the Worlds . Both of these could be explained away as dreams, but then in the final shot, Adam walks into the room Helen just entered to find an enormous tarantula huddled in the corner.

The spiders, then, feel less like a literal function of the plot and more like an overarching metaphor. In an interview with Gyllenhaal and Villeneuve that plays after the credits on Amazon Prime, the director said this about the spiders:

“To be honest with you, it’s not in the book, it’s not in the novel, and I’m not sure if Saramago would’ve been happy with the idea of having something that is so surrealistic in his naturalistic environment that he created in the novel. It’s an image that I found that was a pretty hypnotic and profound [way] to express something about femininity that I was looking to express in one image. Because in the book you can use chapters to express something, but in cinema you have one shot, and the spider was exactly the perfect image. There’s movies that I saw in my life that propose images that were not explained, but were provocative, that were opening doors from a subconscious point of view — images that are frightening and oppressive, but at the same time, you feel the image. It prints itself in your brain, but you feel uncomfortable with it. But there’s a strong meaning in it, and I think that if you think just a little bit you will find it quite quickly.”

If you found it quickly, then good for you: You are Jake Gyllenhaal. If not, don’t feel too bad. My instinct is to approach it surrealistically, as Villeneuve suggests. In Enemy , the spiders mostly appear in dreams, or in dreamlike scenarios, suggesting a Jungian approach to their interpretation. On the one hand, spiders are frightening and dangerous; on the other, they have a direct connection to femininity. In the Arachne myth, which Ovid recounts in Metamorphoses , Arachne beats Athena in a weaving contest, but doesn’t acknowledge that she was able to win thanks to the gift of weaving that Athena gave her in the first place. (One of the many lessons of Greek mythology: Be grateful to the gods, or they will mess you up.) Athena strikes Arachne with intense guilt, which causes her to hang herself. When Athena sees her dead body, she feels a little bad about causing the girl’s suicide just because she lost a weaving contest, so she turns Arachne into a spider, allowing her to weave for all eternity — just not as a human.

Helen’s transformation into a spider, then, has precedent. But Enemy doesn’t contain any weaving contests, unless the DVD’s got some deleted scenes. Instead, the spider connection seems to stem from a different system of thought: the Freudian Madonna-whore complex, in which men see women as either saintly mothers or worthless sex objects. The spiders are implicated early on in the film in some sort of sexual rite, and when Helen, a pregnant woman, turns into the spider after having sex with Adam — shortly after Anthony cheats on his pregnant wife with Mary — it could be seen as a literalization of Adam’s disturbed psyche, which can’t handle intimate relationships. Enemy appears to say that even though Adam has done away with Anthony — and Mary, an innocent bystander who represents some sort of purely sexual relationship, in the process — he still has a ways to go before he can reconcile these two facets of womanhood. And note the names: Mary, the mother of Christ; and Helen, the catalyst for the Trojan War. There’s also a motif around high heels, an obvious feminine symbol: Adam and Anthony each notice Helen and Mary’s heels at separate points in the film, and the platform heels used to crush the spider at the beginning are, uh, hard to miss.

A film that handles ambiguity and symbolism so deftly, while still providing the more concrete thrills of watching a great actor and great director do adventurous, striking work, is a rare and special thing, and that’s why Enemy ’s so brilliant: It can support these readings while still not giving itself away. Although arachnophobes might want to sit this one out.

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Release Date : November 04,2021

123telugu.com Rating : 3/5

Starring: Vishal, Aarya, Mirunalini Ravi, Prakash Raj, Thambi Ramaiah , Karunakaran , Mamta Mohandas

Director: Anand Shanker

Producer: Vinod Kumar

Music Director: Thaman S.S.

Cinematography : R.D. Rajasekar

Editor: Raymond Derrik Crasta

Enemy is a film that has been promoted a lot in the last few days. Starring Arya and Vishal in lead roles, the film is out, and let’s see how it is.

Surya(Vishal) and Rajiv(Arya) are childhood friends. Rajiv is always jealous of Suriya’s sharpness and takes the route of crime at a very young age. Cut to 25 years later, they meet in Singapore. Once again, the war erupts between them in a bigger and crazier backdrop. Who turns whose enemy and what happens, in the end, is the basic story of the film.

Plus Points:

Vishal is fit as a fiddle and does well in his action-packed role. He looks solid and goes all out on Arya in the action sequences. Arya is also no less and brings an edge to the film with his negative role. In a way, Arya showcases a new angle in his acting.

Enemy is filled with full-on action. The thrills are new and create an interest for the audience most of the time. The first half is filled with crime-based scenes and the second half is reserved for solid action.

The action shots between Arya and Vishal have been executed so well and create solid thrill for the audience. Prakash Raj, Mamta Mohan Das do their supporting roles well. The BGM is one of the biggest highlights and Thaman delivers elevates things to the next level.

Minus Points:

The makers have concentrated more on the styling rather than the emotional part. The story had good scope to elevate the rift between the two heroes but that is not done that well. Also, as it is an out-and-out action film, a few logics go for a toss.

The second half has a few lags here and there. The makers should have edited out the repeated scenes to make things crisp. As the concentration is mostly on the action, the director Anand Shankar lets go of the key scenes which create a build-up to this big rift between the two heroes.

Technical Aspects:

Thaman’s music is dull but his BGM is on fire. The camera work is amazing and so was the splendid production design. The film looks slick and stylish. Special mention to the action choreography which is superb.

Coming to the director Anand Shankar, he has done a decent job with the film. He made solid use of stars like Arya and Vishal and narrated an action-packed film. If he would have handled the emotions a bit better, the output would have been even better.

On the whole, Enemy is an action drama with passable thrills and stunts. Vishal and Arya do well and hold the film together for the most part. All those who love action-packed films with big heroes can surely give this film a shot this Diwali.

Reviewed by 123telugu Team

Click Here For Telugu Version

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2013, Mystery & thriller, 1h 30m

What to know

Critics Consensus

Thanks to a strong performance from Jake Gyllenhaal and smart direction from Denis Villeneuve, Enemy hits the mark as a tense, uncommonly adventurous thriller. Read critic reviews

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Enemy   photos.

A mild-mannered college professor (Jake Gyllenhaal) discovers a look-alike actor and delves into the other man's private affairs.

Rating: R (Language|Graphic Nudity|Some Strong Sexual Content)

Genre: Mystery & thriller

Original Language: English

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Producer: Niv Fichman , Miguel A. Faura

Writer: Javier Gullón

Release Date (Theaters): Mar 14, 2014  limited

Release Date (Streaming): Apr 22, 2014

Box Office (Gross USA): $1.0M

Runtime: 1h 30m

Distributor: A24

Cast & Crew

Jake Gyllenhaal

Adam Bell, Anthony St. Claire

Mélanie Laurent

Isabella Rossellini

Adam's Mother

Sarah Gadon

Stephen R. Hart

Jane Moffat

Joshua Peace

Receptionist

Denis Villeneuve

Javier Gullón

Screenwriter

Niv Fichman

Miguel A. Faura

François Ivernel

Executive Producer

Cameron McCracken

Victor Loewy

Nicolas Bolduc

Cinematographer

Matthew Hannam

Film Editing

Danny Bensi

Original Music

Saunder Jurriaans

Patrice Vermette

Production Design

Sean Breaugh

Art Director

Renée April

Costume Design

Deirdre Bowen

News & Interviews for Enemy

Enemy Giveaway: Win a Signed Poster

Critics Consensus: Need for Speed is Busted

Five Favorite Films with Jake Gyllenhaal

Critic Reviews for Enemy

Audience reviews for enemy.

As evidenced by the critical and commercial success of last year's "Arrival", director Denis Villeneuve has firmly established himself as one of the most talented filmmakers of this century. All of his films tend to run along the edge of sanity, but "Enemy" is by far his most abstract and stylistically striking. The term "mind-fuck" is often tossed around in conversations among adolescent males who find movies like "Fight Club", "Inception", or "The Sixth Sense" to be "deep" because there's an unexpected twist in their perceptions of characters or events. Far from the convoluted, fruitless mental gymnastics of Nolan or the bone-headed third act twist of Shyamalan, Villeneuve managed to craft in "Enemy" a delicious pretzel of twisting, layered concepts that I would say qualifies as a proper mind-fuck. Also, the film sets itself apart because of a pronounced ambiguity regarding what is real and what is not. I'm not going to dissect and draw up a conspiracy theory web for you with a definitive explanation of the film as that would take forever and be completely presumptuous. Each scene is integral to understanding the film, but Villeneuve admits that the open-ended nature of the movie is by design. Obviously there is a lot to unpack, so I will just hit the highlights. A key theme of the film is that of individualism. Jake Gyllenhaal presumes himself to be an individual (and so do we, as he is the protagonist). As he points out in his class repeatedly, totalitarian regimes "would censor any means of individual expression...and this is a pattern that repeats itself." Subject to the events of the film, Gyllenhaal's character Adam Bell is confronted with the possibility that he is NOT an individual when he encounters Anthony Claire, a man that resembles him in every aspect except mannerisms and attitude. Is this doppelganger a clone? A twin? Or is it his future or past self? Due to numerous subtle hints (the blueberries, the scar, the erotic key club, etc.) throughout the movie, a strong case could be made for or against the two men being the same. In light of this ambiguity, the crisis of his identity almost serves as a Macguffin. We can only deduce that Jake Gyllenhaal is an enemy to his doppelganger if they are two people, or he is his own worst enemy if he is just experiencing some psychological fugue state. The nice thing is that you don't need realism to "get" the film. The surreal spider imagery is a recurring theme that takes us to the next layer of meaning. Some have suggested that the spider motif is Bell/Claire's perception of the women in his life - his wife, his mother, and his mistress. That is a strong point as female spiders tend to ingest their mates. But I think it goes beyond a gender study. One of the most memorable and important images is the giant spider walking through the foggy Toronto skyline. The spider represents control. It creeps along the stage at the erotic show when he is quietly subjecting the model to his gaze. It passes him by in the hallway of his dream before he meets his other self at the hotel, soon to be subjected to his darker half's manipulation. It looms over Toronto because Bell/Claire is a microcosm of society. And his wife becomes one in the final scene because he fears the prospect of settling down, being monogamous, being controlled, and she knows he is still capable of being wayward when he should be becoming a responsible parent. We are enemies to ourselves, individually and as a society. After that, I can merely speculate that as a meta-narrative, Villeneuve funnels our perceptions as a means of controlling our thoughts. If the protagonist is a reflection of the director, perhaps he feels some amount of guilt in facilitating or being subjected to totalitarianism by distracting us with the film. After all, the only foray into the full color spectrum is the lighthearted film within the film "Where There's a Will There's a Way". But that movie is a false reality. The oppressive sepia of "Enemy" has a sickly, dream-like atmosphere, but it's much more true to life than what looks to be a carefree and colorful romantic comedy. It's a tricky thing, the subconscious, and the enriching joy of this film is that one can engage with its many shades of meaning from different perspectives and achieve different results.

Much like with Arrival, Villenueve refuses to spoon feed the audience and so leaves you to make up your own mind about what's going on. Your enjoyment of the film will depend on this factor.

Excellently acted and filmed mystery thriller about a man who discovers an actor looks exactly like him. The film does a lot of things right in the unraveling of this premise, albeit dodging a few questions that should most certainly arise. That's pretty interesting and exciting to follow, as long as you prepare yourself for not really getting an ultimate answer. Of course in the end the film has to be artsy for being artsy's sake. I wasn't even that mad, though, because the road there was fun.

Bafflingly brilliant in every way, "Enemy" marks a career high for Jake Gyllenhaal, as he portrays the characters of Adam and Anthony. After seeing a film, he notices someone who looks just like him. He then looks into this actors career and notices two other films as well. After viewing his films, he decides to contact him to meet up. The confrontation is very well-handled and the climax of the film after everything begins to tie together, twists the entire story around, making you feel upset and happy all at once. By the time the credits roll you will have been through an entire universe of emotions, and although the ending may not completely make sense upon first viewing, you can tell the filmmakers meant something profound with it, and for that, I loved it. Every second of this picture, from the camerawork, to the acting, to the screenplay (slim I might add), is breathtaking. "Enemy" is one of my favourite films in this genre for sure, but it is not for everyone, especially for casual moviegoers. I loved every second of this artistic film. "Enemy" is brilliant!

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Mind-bending, surreal mystery with sex and language.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

The movie is so surreal and elusive that any messa

The movie more or less shows two sides of one pers

We see a realistic car crash, and a few nightmaris

A scene takes place at a strange, mysterious club

Language is not heard very often, but in the film'

Characters drink casually, at home, in a backgroun

Parents need to know that Enemy is a sexy, surreal mystery from the director/actor team that made Prisoners . It features lots of female nudity, including one full-frontal shot, plus some creepy sexual imagery and the suggestion of women performing sex acts for men to watch. There are also several sex…

Positive Messages

The movie is so surreal and elusive that any messages are buried deep within. Perhaps: "curiosity killed the cat"? Other themes will be up for discussion.

Positive Role Models

The movie more or less shows two sides of one person, one aggressive and confident, and the other meek and sad. Neither is particularly admirable, though the movie could spark discussion about the different sides of our own personalities.

Violence & Scariness

We see a realistic car crash, and a few nightmarishly scary images. Otherwise, there are a few moments of characters yelling or arguing with one another.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A scene takes place at a strange, mysterious club in which women perform on stage. We hear the sounds and see some suggestions of one woman masturbating, while many men watch. The main character has sex with his girlfriend more than once; her breasts and bottom are shown. A pregnant woman is shown undressing, and her breasts are on view. Characters have sex with more than one partner. In a nightmare sequence, a fully naked woman with a spider head walks toward the camera (upside-down, on the ceiling). A character follows a strange woman down a hallway, with a close-up on her behind (she's wearing a kind of sexy, fishnet outfit).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Language is not heard very often, but in the film's final third, "f--k" is used several times. "S--t" is also heard once or twice.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Characters drink casually, at home, in a background way. A woman says, "I think I'm drunk" in one scene, and goes to bed.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Enemy is a sexy, surreal mystery from the director/actor team that made Prisoners . It features lots of female nudity, including one full-frontal shot, plus some creepy sexual imagery and the suggestion of women performing sex acts for men to watch. There are also several sex scenes between partners, and characters with more than one partner. Language is strong in the latter part of the movie, with several uses of "f--k," plus at least one use of "s--t." There's a realistic car crash, and characters shouting and arguing. Characters also drink in a casual, background way, at home. The movie is more about the mystery than the solution, and does not provide any real answers. It will be up to adventurous older teens and grown-ups to ponder the clues and reach their own conclusions. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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• Parents say (4)
• Kids say (10)

Based on 4 parent reviews

Dark, smart mystery

Great movie, what's the story.

Adam Bell ( Jake Gyllenhaal ) is a sad, drab history professor who gives the same lecture about dictatorships (and their repeating patterns), and goes home to the same evening routine with his girlfriend Mary ( Melanie Laurent ). One night he rents a movie and spots an actor that looks exactly like himself. He discovers the actor's name, Anthony Clair (Gyllenhaal again), and contacts him. The confident, commanding Anthony is married to the beautiful, pregnant Helen ( Sarah Gadon ). The two men appear to be exact doubles, and neither knows precisely what to make of it, until Anthony callously decides to steal Mary away for a weekend. Yet for Adam, the puzzle, involving a mysterious package and dreams about spiders, grows ever more complex.

Is It Any Good?

Oscar-nominated Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve continues his collaboration with actor Jake Gyllenhaal , following Prisoners ; the result here is much tighter but far less realistic. Indeed, ENEMY could easily be described as surreal. It's a mystery story, with mystery elements, but the movie does not provide much in the way of answers. It's more like a David Lynch film, with clues, emotions, images, ideas, and sensations coming together for one unique experience, with a bizarre, unforgettable ending.

Enemy begins with shots of a mysterious club involving women in sexual situations and spiders, and these nightmarish images continue to permeate the film. The movie also dabbles in notions of repeating patterns and doubled images, though not overtly. It's smart enough not to leave blatant clues or red herrings, anywhere. Based on a 2002 novel by Nobel Prize-winning Portuguese author Jose Saramago, it's a truly intriguing movie, sure to leave viewers pondering long after.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the sex in the movie. Does sex seem to be a healthy or loving outlet for these characters? What's the overall tone to the sexual activity in the movie?

Is the movie scary ? Creepy? How does a story that departs from reality affect you? What other movies have departed from reality, with different results?

The main character's personality traits seem to have been split, one confident and aggressive, and the other meek and sad. Do you feel all these things within yourself? At what different times, or in what situations?

Movie Details

• In theaters : March 14, 2014
• On DVD or streaming : June 24, 2014
• Cast : Jake Gyllenhaal , Sarah Gadon , Melanie Laurent
• Director : Denis Villeneuve
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : A24
• Genre : Thriller
• Run time : 90 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : some strong sexual content, graphic nudity and language
• Last updated : August 13, 2023

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Enemy review – a thrilling take on the doppelganger theme

Richard Ayoade last year showed how to extract dark comedy from the doppelganger theme in his version of Dostoyevsky’s The Double; Canadian film-maker Denis Villeneuve’s emphasis is on neurosis and fear with this adaptation of José Saramago ’s 2002 novel O Homem Duplicado: The Duplicated Man. He brings a formidable atmosphere and control to this intriguing, disquieting film: the double theme is a notorious film-school cliche, and using the same actor in two roles can be a lazy shortcut to the uncanny. But Villeneuve’s film earns its anxiety. Jake Gyllenhaal gives the dual performance: a depressed history lecturer in Toronto who one night watches a movie and glimpses an actor who appears to be his exact duplicate. He seeks out this mirror image; their encounter gives rise to hostility, terror, a kind of mutually agreed nervous breakdown, but a thrilling sense of possibility, an escape from the prison house of individuality. There is something of David Cronenberg ’s Dead Ringers here – maybe even a touch of  Patricia Highsmith ’s Strangers on a Train. There are coolly effective moments when Villeneuve declines to make it clear which double we are watching and whose memories and fears we are experiencing. The final shot is bizarre. This could be Villeneuve’s most accomplished film so far.

• Jake Gyllenhaal
• Denis Villeneuve

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Cinephile Corner

Movie Reviews, Rankings, Film News and More

Enemy Movie Review: Jake Gyllenhaal Gives a Career-Defining Performance in Denis Villeneuve A24 Thriller

Review: Beyond the immediate impact, Enemy lingers in your mind, prompting introspection and challenging your perception of what the plot ultimately means. Denis Villeneuve directs one of the most beguiling movies of the 2010s.

Denis Villeneuve ‘s 2013 movie, Enemy , transcends the confines of what a conventional thriller can be, weaving through a tense world with existential dread and psychological turmoil. While the genre elements of mystery and suspense are undeniably present, they serve as mere brushstrokes in a larger image exploring the profound themes of identity, duality, and the subconscious.

Jake Gyllenhaal delivers a career-defining performance, embodying both Adam, the repressed college professor, and Anthony, his carefree doppelgänger and actor, with such nuanced dexterity that their distinct personalities bleed through every gesture and expression. The audience is drawn into a voyeuristic dance, deciphering the small differences in their demeanor, morals, and perspectives, constantly questioning the nature of their connection and the blurred lines between the two characters’ realities.

Villeneuve, mastering visual storytelling in Enemy , crafts an unsettling atmosphere that seeps into your bones. The film’s ochre-tinged palette, reminiscent of faded photographs, casts a pall over the sterile cityscape, mirroring the characters’ internal struggles. Deliberate pacing and a dissonant score by Saunder Jurriaans and Danny Bensi further amplify the sense of unease, creating a dreamlike state where reality and illusion constantly dance on the edge of perception.

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Enemy ‘s true power lies in its ambiguity. Unlike conventional narratives that spoon-feed answers, Denis Villeneuve invites the audience to actively participate in unraveling the movie’s enigmatic plotlines. The recurring spider motif becomes a potent symbol, open to individual interpretation. Is it a harbinger of danger, a manifestation of repressed desires, or simply a narrative thread to guide us through the inner turmoil of Adam? The beauty lies in the absence of definitive answers for Enemy , where Denis allows you to form your own conclusions.

Beyond the immediate impact, Enemy lingers in your mind, prompting introspection and challenging your perception of what the plot ultimately means. The film’s exploration of identity transcends the individual, delving into the collective anxieties and societal pressures that shape our understanding of ourselves. In a world increasingly obsessed with self-branding and social media personas, Enemy forces us to confront the unsettling possibility that the lines between who we are and who we project to the world might be more blurred than we imagine.

The movie stands among one of the best A24 movies to date, nearly everything released in 2013, and Denis Villeneuve’s own filmography. It really improves on rewatch, and I can’t wait to revisit again down the line.

Genre: Mystery , Thriller

Watch Enemy (2013) on VOD

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Enemy Film Cast and Credits

Jake Gyllenhaal as Adam Bell / Anthony Claire

Sarah Gadon  as Helen Claire

Mélanie Laurent as Mary

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Writer: Javier Gullón

Cinematography: Nicolas Bolduc

Editor: Matthew Hannam

Composers: Saunder Jurriaans ,  Danny Bensi

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Enemy Review

02 Jan 2015

"Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered,” runs a title card at the start of Enemy. Based on José Saramago’s Nobel prize-winning novella The Double, you might never get to the bottom of Denis Villeneuve and Jake Gyllenhaal’s second collaboration following Prisoners (it actually shot first), but figuring it out is a riveting, thoughtful, thoroughly disturbing experience. This is brilliant, daring filmmaking that calls to mind the heyday of David Lynch and, post-Incendies and Prisoners, confirms Villeneuve as one of cinema’s most compelling new voices.

In outline, Enemy sounds like an extended Twilight Zone episode but the premise — lecturer Adam (Gyllenhaal) becomes obsessed with his dead spit, actor Anthony (also Gyllenhaal) — is played for more than spooky sci-fi weirdness. Instead it’s a slow inward interrogation into a split psyche, detailing mental turmoil, unconscious desires, predatory sexuality (Mélanie Laurent and Sarah Gadon play partners who get swapped) and the inability to feel intimacy with a dark, unflinching eye. It’s not all downbeat, though. The apartments are to die for.

If on paper the pair seem miles apart (Adam – Volvo and cords; Anthony — motorbikes and leathers), Gyllenhaal negotiates the differences in increments. These are two terrific performances, shifting between emotionally comatose and playful, that make you forget the special effects process but, more importantly, provide a grounding to anchor (but never explain) all the strangeness surrounding it. The Canadian milieu might call to mind early Cronenberg and you could lob any number of other touchstones at it (Kafka, Kubrick), but Enemy is its own thing. Villeneuve has incredible control of his palette, both visually (all cigarette-stain yellows and bruise browns) and aurally (LOUD scary music by Saunder Jurriaans and Danny Bensi), subtly building an undertow of fear and dread. On top, we get the more overtly bizarre — diversions into underground sex clubs, unsettling images of giant spiders. Some films are about characters dealing with uncomfortable headspaces. Enemy puts you inside one.

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விஷால்-ஆர்யாவின் அதிரடியான எனிமி பட ட்ரைலர் வெளியீடு !

By aravind selvam | galatta | october 23, 2021 17:28 pm ist.

விக்ரம் பிரபு நடித்த அரிமா நம்பி படத்தின் மூலம் இயக்குனராக அறிமுகமானவர் ஆனந்த் ஷங்கர்.ஏ.ஆர்.முருகதாஸின் உதவி இயக்குனராக இருந்து ஆக்ஷன் இயக்குனராக முதல் படத்திலேயே முத்திரை பதித்தார் ஆனந்த் ஷங்கர்.இதனை தொடர்ந்து சீயான் விக்ரம் நடித்த இருமுகன் படத்தினை இயக்கினார்.

இரட்டை வேடங்களில் விக்ரம் நடித்த இந்த படமும் ரசிகர்கள் மற்றும் விமர்சகர்களிடம் நல்ல வரவேற்பை பெற்றது.அடுத்ததாக விஜய் தேவர்கொண்டா நடிப்பில் உருவான நோட்டா படத்தினை இயக்கியிருந்தார்,இந்த படம் ரசிகர்கள் மத்தியில் சுமாரான வரவேற்பை பெற்றிருந்தது.அடுத்ததாக விஷால்-ஆர்யா இணைந்து நடித்து வரும் Enemy படத்தினை இயக்கி வருகிறார்.

படத்தின் நாயகனாக விஷால் நடித்துள்ளார்.ஆர்யா இந்த படத்தில் வில்லனாக நடித்துள்ளார்.மினி ஸ்டுடியோ சார்பாக வினோத் குமார் இந்த படத்தினை தயாரித்துள்ளார்.மிர்னாலினி ரவி,மம்தா மோகன்தாஸ்,பிரகாஷ்ராஜ் உள்ளிட்ட நட்சத்திரங்கள் முக்கிய கதாபாத்திரத்தில் நடித்துள்ளனர்.தமன் இந்த படத்திற்கு இசையமைத்துள்ளார்.சாம் சி எஸ் இந்த படத்திற்கு பின்னணி இசை அமைத்துள்ளார்.

இந்த படம் தீபாவளியை முன்னிட்டு நவம்பர் 4ஆம் தேதி வெளியாகும் என்று அறிவிக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது.படத்தின் ரிலீஸ் நெருங்கி வரும் வேளையில் இந்த படத்தின் ட்ரைலர் ஒன்றை படக்குழுவினர் தற்போது வெளியிட்டுள்ளனர்.அதிரடியான இந்த ட்ரைலர் ரசிகர்கள் மத்தியில் நல்ல வரவேற்பை பெற்று வருகிறது.இந்த ட்ரைலரை கீழே உள்ள லிங்கில் காணலாம்

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23/10/2021 04:19 PM

விஜய் டிவி சீரியலில் ஹீரோ மாற்றம்...? அதிர்ச்சியில் ரசிகர்கள்

23/10/2021 03:23 PM

விக்ரமாதித்யாவாக வசீகரிக்கும் பிரபாஸ் ! ராதே ஷ்யாம் படத்தின் புது டீஸர்

23/10/2021 02:23 PM

செம ரகளையான எம்ஜிஆர் மகன் படத்தின் புதிய ட்ரைலர் !

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The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

The British military recruits a small group of highly skilled soldiers to strike against German forces behind enemy lines during World War II. The British military recruits a small group of highly skilled soldiers to strike against German forces behind enemy lines during World War II. The British military recruits a small group of highly skilled soldiers to strike against German forces behind enemy lines during World War II.

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Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, the best of enemies.

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Our site’s beloved founder, Roger Ebert was fond of saying that it’s not what a movie is about, but how it’s about it. “The Best of Enemies” is about outspoken Black activist Ann Atwater ( Taraji P. Henson ) clashing over school integration with C.P. Ellis ( Sam Rockwell ), the Exalted Cyclops of the North Carolina Branch of the Ku Klux Klan. The duo co-chaired a charrette where the resulting majority vote would determine the fate of East Durham’s Black students who’d been displaced by a school fire. Though there was no love lost between them, Atwater and Ellis eventually became lifelong friends. For those of you still smarting from that racist police officer’s presumed redemption in “ Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri ,” this movie has receipts for its Rockwell character’s redemption: Not only do we see the real Atwater and Ellis together during the closing credits, we’re told that Atwater gave the eulogy at Ellis’ funeral.

This, dear readers, is  what  “The Best of Enemies” is about, and I have no problems with that. Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. My issues all stem from  how  this movie is about that story. Director Robin Bissell ’s script has more sympathy for, and pays more attention to, the Klansman than the Black children whose future may be forever damaged by the outcome of the charrette. Despite having an equal share in the story, Ann Atwater is pushed into the background, sometimes disappearing from the film for stretches at a time. When she’s on screen, she’s either inexplicably doing saintly things for her adversary or scowling at the camera. I had to think long and hard before I recalled a scene where Bissell’s camera wasn’t fixated on the angry face of Taraji P. Henson. C.P. Ellis gets to express all sorts of emotions that supposedly represent conflict and humanity; all Ann Atwater gets to do is fit the stereotypical role of “pissed off sistah.” Even the movie itself mocks her righteous anger, with White guys implying onscreen that she has PMS.

This movie isn’t just tone-deaf, it’s ass-backwards. Did the filmmakers read the room before dropping this insulting malarkey into theaters? Or maybe they read the room just right, considering that the repugnant “ Green Book ” just won Best Picture. Regardless, I cannot believe that, in 2019, I have to review a movie where my latest White savior is the same guy who’d put a noose on my neck and hang me from the nearest tree. Yes, in real life Ellis did see the error of his ways and change. But it damn sure didn’t happen the way this film presents it. In fact, Ellis’ big, stand-up-and-cheer Klan membership card-tearing speech makes absolutely no sense in the context of this narrative.

And make no mistake, “The Best of Enemies” is a White savior narrative. We learn more about Ellis’ family, his Klan buddies and his gas station than we do about Atwater’s daughter, the displaced students or any other Black character besides Bill Reddick ( Babou Ceesay ), the guy overseeing the charrette. We spend more time in the racist dive bar where the Klan makes small talk than we do in the still-smoldering school where the Black children must take classes despite the smoke. More cinematic effort is spent mourning the loss of 650 gallons of gas at Ellis’ place of employment than the subpar conditions the East Durham citizens must contend with because their landlords and politicians are in cahoots with Ellis’ crew.

The way Bissell treats Ellis’ role in the KKK is suspect. Granted, Ellis and his brethren spit racial slurs and don’t want to mix the races, but the two violent acts the Klan commits are both against White women. One of the victims is a reputed “nigra lover” whose house is shot up in fetishistic slow motion (making sure not to hit her with any bullets, mind you). Ellis is a willing participant there. But he’s not present at the second instance. In that, the other woman is threatened with rape and murder unless she votes against integration. Ellis’ cronies force her to utter racial slurs as they sexually molest her, and as a result, she votes against her wishes. Ellis is also not present when his cronies threaten a Vietnam vet whose store hires only Blacks, including a fellow vet who manages the store. That Ellis’ hands are only dirtied one time is by design.

Meanwhile, grumpy old Ann Atwater is yelling at everyone in power so she can be heard, going so far as to lay hands on the worst offenders. (This isn’t fabricated—the real Atwater was known for this and Henson plays the hell out of these scenes.) But this is all we really learn about her. She’s an enigma in her own story. When Ellis’ institutionalized son needs a private room so that he can function better, Atwater inexplicably makes a deal with a Black nurse she knows at the hospital. Why did she do this? Well, in researching this story, I read a quote from Ms. Atwater where she described her activist model as giving someone what they want and then telling them what she wanted in return. Wouldn’t it have been lovely to see that philosophy in action? “The Best of Enemies” doesn’t think so.

Henson gives her all despite her anemic part, but she’s not the only actress left stranded. Poor Anne Heche has a thankless role as Ellis’ voice-of-reason wife. Like Linda Cardellini in “Green Book” she tsk-tsks her racist-ass husband’s actions like a cinematic Edith Bunker. Unlike Cardellini, she actually gets to leave the house, meeting with Atwater in the one scene where Henson is allowed to be playful and add shading to her character. Of course, some Klansmen just happen to be driving by Atwater’s house at the same time Mrs. Ellis is exiting Atwater’s house. Oh boy, they are NOT happy about that!

“The Best of Enemies” has no excuse for the way it is made. At 135 minutes, there was plenty of time to flesh out the Black side of this story, yet the filmmakers didn’t think you wanted to see that. The filmmakers do, however, think you’ll get a kick out of the absurd needle drops they employ. I expected the standard “hmm-HMMMMMM!” gospel style humming on the soundtrack—that always signifies Black suffering in these movies! But I didn’t expect that humming to come from Bill Withers nor Donovan’s “Hurdy Gurdy Man.” And someone much wiser than I will have to explain why “Queen Bitch” filled the speakers at one point.

“Bullshit!” I wrote in huge letters in my notebook. I was being too kind. I learned more from reading Ann Atwater’s Wikipedia page than I did from this reprehensible movie. I also watched footage of Ellis and Atwater on YouTube; these clips proved fascinating and enlightening and I highly recommend you seek them out. 

Odie Henderson

Odie "Odienator" Henderson has spent over 33 years working in Information Technology. He runs the blogs Big Media Vandalism and Tales of Odienary Madness. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire  here .

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Film credits.

The Best of Enemies (2019)

Rated PG-13 for thematic material, racial epithets, some violence and a suggestive reference.

133 minutes

Taraji P. Henson as Ann Atwater

Sam Rockwell as Claiborne Paul Ellis

Babou Ceesay as Bill Riddick

Nick Searcy as Garland Keith

Wes Bentley as Floyd Kelly

Anne Heche as Mary Ellis

• Robin Bissell

Writer (based on the book by)

• Osha Gray Davidson

Cinematographer

• David Lanzenberg
• Marcelo Zarvos

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