Jake Gyllenhaal goes head-to-head with himself in Enemy

Enemy is sure to be a divisive film. The first collaboration between Quebec director Denis Villeneuve and Jake Gyllenhaal is a tense and mysterious puzzle box of a movie that has much in common with the harrowing Prisoners, which the duo made immediately following the filming of Enemy. However, while Prisoners was a gritty yet fairly straight-forward thriller, Enemy is a conundrum of a movie, one that is less interested in narrative than in examining the inner-workings of how we construct our identities.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays double duty here, as both schlumpy history professor Adam Bell, and as Anthony Clair, a struggling C-level actor. Adam becomes aware of Anthony when he notices a bit actor in a film who appears to be his doppelganger. He eventually convinces Anthony to meet up with him, where they confirm that they are exact physical doubles. Yet as similar as they look, their personal lives are mirror opposites. Adam is introverted, living in a barely furnished apartment and in an uneventful relationship with his girlfriend Mary (Mélanie Laurent). Anthony, on the other hand, has a pregnant wife (Sarah Gadon) and a slick modern condo, but is struggling to regain his wife’s trust after an affair.

Adam is scared off after their initial encounter, but Anthony is intrigued by Adam, and forces himself into Adam’s life. While Adam and Anthony each become more intertwined in each other’s lives, their roles begin to change, as do their relationships with their significant others. They are completely identical, with only their wardrobe setting them apart, a fact that they each take advantage of in order to impersonate one another. This increasingly frantic blurring of roles is interspersed with Adam’s beguiling dream sequences (if that is really what they are), including that of a giant spider winding its way across the Toronto skyline.

Without giving too much away, the film ends on a disjointed note, without stringing together any cohesive resolution. Much like David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, which appears to be a direct influence on Enemy both tonally and thematically, this should prove to be a film that rewards close observation and repeat viewings.

Apart from the threadbare plot, there is a lot to admire in Enemy. Shot in Toronto, the film maintains a moody and tense look throughout. There has never been a film that has shown Toronto in this light (or lack thereof). The city is presented as a sprawling grey mass, peppered throughout with depressingly interchangeable apartment complexes and mile-high condominiums. Leave it to a Quebec director to portray Toronto as a drab and menacing metropolis with a skyscraper-sized spider at its core.

Enemy has a lot to offer for those willing to take a trip down the proverbial rabbit hole, including  a standout performance by Gyllenhaal, and a complexly inter-woven story about male identity, relationships and commitment. And that giant spider, of course.

Enemy opens theatrically on March 14. Read our review with Denis Villeneuve here.