Enemy
Year: 2013
Rating: R
Length: 91 minutes / 1.52 hours
My first introduction to Denis Villeneuve was Prisoners (2013). This was an intense film, but even after seeing Sicario (2015), I didn’t get hooked on his directing until Arrival (2016). What’s interesting is that another Villeneuve film from 2013 evaded my radar until now. My film-loving friends made me aware of Enemy (2013), but I didn’t get around to watching it until now. I’m glad I did. Seeing Villeneuve in the early stages of defining his style is fascinating, and Enemy certainly is more stylistic than Prisoners ever was, even if it felt like a student film at times.
Of course, being one of Villeneuve’s earlier films, Enemy has some rough edges. It’s difficult to tell whether the source material influenced some of this film’s weird choices, but it’s the one thing that really prevents me from giving it a perfect score. Maybe cutting out the spider bits would have made Enemy more cohesive, but then it might have suffered from being almost too generic. The shocking ending definitely places it up there in the list of all-time “WTF” cinematic moments. Was it necessary? It’s hard to tell. Was it memorable? Absolutely.
With such a small cast of characters, Enemy‘s success is not entirely because of Denis Villeneuve’s directing. Jake Gyllenhaal practically carries this movie…twice. His portrayal of two drastically different characters who look alike is part of the charm of this movie. It’s almost a modern interpretation of “The Prince and the Pauper,” but with enough tweaks to make it feel original. Of course, the two love interests of Gyllenhaal’s characters sold this movie for me. Mélanie Laurent was great, but Sarah Gadon’s performance as the wife of a movie star who “traded up” was so smartly done.
Early Villeneuve style with a few odd plot choices, I give Enemy 4.0 stars out of 5.
