Enemy (2014) – Movie Review ★★★★
Director: Denis Villeneuve – Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mélanie Laurent, Isabella Rossellini, Sarah Gadon, Tim Post & Joshua Peace – Synopsis: Based on José Saramago’s 2002 novel The Double – Adam (Gyllenhaal) is a history professor, pretty bored with existence living an almost repetitive live style and seeming pretty disinterested with everything and that includes his beautiful girlfriend Mary – one night whilst marking some papers he puts on a movie on the recommendation of a colleague, half way through he spots an actor named Anthony Clair who looks the exact double of him – Adam decides to track this man down and by doing so changes his life as he knows it forever – Verdict: this is the second collaboration between Gyllenhaal and Canadian filmmaker Villeneuve, it’s certainly the weirdest and some would even argue the best of the two – whilst last year’s Prisoners was a taut, commercial thriller that combines a superb ensemble of actors around a real life narrative ENEMY couldn’t be so different – it treads a dark, mesmerizing and at times perplexing path with a pace that’s deliberately slow, an evocative soundtrack that’s hauntingly beautiful and some delicious low level camera angles that’s invades the screen, suffocating yet instrumental in the overall mood of the film – I am running out of superlatives for Jake Gyllenhaal, his performances since Fincher’s Zodiac have been towering, embodying each picture with a new found confidence and making that film his own, his brooding intensity commands the screen like a young Pacino and with Enemy Gyllenhaal delivers not only one knockout performance but two, his mannerisms, emotions and slight changes to his appearance are great and utterly fascinating to watch – he is also supported on screen by the lovely French actress Mélanie Laurent (remember her in Inglorious Basterds) and the fabulous Sarah Gadon (A Dangerous Method) who are both well cast and give top performances to the parts respectively – Overall: Villeneuve Enemy is a strange mind twister of a movie that’s reminiscent of Lynch and Cronenberg at their peak – it’s an atmospheric film jigsaw that will have scratching your head a few times wondering what on earth is going, but trust me it’s worth sticking around and although the film asks more questions than answers Denis Villeneuve Enemy is a spellbinding triumph in original film making…
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