¡Qué horror! 2014
Candidate #8
ENEMY
(September 2013)
Based on José
Saramago’s novel O Homem Duplicado (The Double), Denis Villeneuve’s Enemy is sly and subtle horror with a distinctly
Cronenbergian air to it.
Here,
Jake Gyllenhall plays History professor Adam Bell, who quite suddenly discovers
he’s got an exact lookalike in actor Daniel Saint Claire (real, non-screen name,
Anthony).
A
fascinatingly oblique take on the doppelgänger
idea, Enemy is a tale that’s more
concerned with how the weird sh!t scenario impacts on the characters, rather
than the whys and the mystery behind said weird sh!t scenario.
If
you’re looking for clear cut answers without the slightest hint of ambiguity,
then look elsewhere…
As
he navigates the story’s unsettling and uncertain terrain with us, Gyllenhall is
ably assisted onscreen by Mélanie Laurent (as Adam’s girlfriend Mary), Sarah
Gadon (as Anthony’s pregnant wife Helen), and the radiantly awesome Isabella
Rossellini (as Adam’s mother).
Given
her presence in the senior’s Cosmopolis and
A Dangerous Method and the junior’s Antiviral, Gadon’s presence only further
enhances the Cronenberg echo here, while Rossellini adds just the faintest
whiff of Lynch to the proceedings.
Certainly,
this is horror that will not be to everyone’s taste, and that WTF ending will
almost surely lose some people as well, but for my money, Enemy is a riveting narrative that is intent on exploring the
inhabitants of a world with mysteries aplenty imbedded in its hidden
architecture, a story that asks us to weave our own meanings out of the vague
wisps and sinister tatters that are left to us as the end credits sequence
begins.
Parting Shot: Nominated for 10 awards
at this year’s Canadian Screen Awards (including Adapted Screenplay and Best
Motion Picture), Enemy was ultimately
honored with five: Achievement in Direction, Performance by an Actress in a
Supporting Role (Gadon), Achievement in Music – Original Score (Danny Bensi,
Saunder Jurriaans), Achievement in
Cinematography (Nicolas Bolduc), and Achievement in Editing (Matthew Hannam).
It
will be noted that Hannam is another Cronenberg connection, having also edited Antiviral.
It’s
only fitting that David Cronenberg just also happened to be the recipient of a
lifetime achievement award at the same Canadian Screen Awards night, where
Villeneuve had this to say: "The thing that I admire the most about other
filmmakers is when they are able to build their own world. And there's nobody
like David Cronenberg."
(Enemy OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)