DVD: Enemy

Jake Gyllenhaal and Canadian director Denis Villeneuve shot Enemy before their collaboration on Prisoners (released in 2013), but already the combination was working stunningly well.

In outline, Enemy doesn't sound hugely original – university lecturer Adam (Gyllenhaal) becomes fixated with his own double, an actor called Anthony Claire (also Gyllenhaal), who he happens to spot while watching a movie on DVD, and their lives become progressively entangled after Adam feels compelled to track down his doppelganger. But thanks to the star's subtle and fastidious playing of the two characters, and Villeneuve's skill in evoking multiple layers of paranoia and insecurity beneath a deceptively calm surface, the piece grips with steadily-ratcheting power.

The screenplay, by Javier Gullón, is derived from José Saramango's novel The Double, but its language is emphatically filmic. Writer and director haven't been afraid to dump linear narrative in favour of ominously-charged symbolism when it suits them (the recurring, and increasingly prominent, spider motif being the most conspicuous example), while also taking the everyday and imbuing it with a kind of indolent menace. The story is set in Toronto, but the city is depicted as a depersonalised grid of soulless and frequently unfinished tower blocks, shot in sludgy washed-out tones which convey a sense of extraordinary hopelessness. The accompanying music, by Saunder Jurrians and Danny Bensi, aptly combines neurotic instrumental writing with distempered percussion interludes.

We see Adam lecturing his students, clearly by long-practised rote, on the controlling nature of dictatorships, echoing the dismal tunnel his own life seems to be trapped in. Adam is a more lugubriously passive character than Anthony, the latter radiating a distinct sense of threat (especially when clad in his motorcycle leathers) and an air of predatory sexuality. Yet gradually, their personalities begin to mingle, and even their partners – Mélanie Laurent and Sarah Gaydon, each keyed precisely into Villeneuve's vision – are sucked into the double-Jake vortex. Enemy defies analysis by soundbite, but it sinks its hooks into your imagination.

Overleaf: watch the trailer for Enemy