Butler's Cinema Scene

Jake Gyllenhaal, meet Jake Gyllenhaal

“ENEMY” My rating:  B (Opening March 21 at the Leawood )

90 minutes | MPAA rating: R

The old saw “He’s his own worst enemy” gets a new and disturbing twist in “Enemy,” a slowly-percolating thriller that finds Jake Gyllenhaal confronting his own doppelganger.

This is the second teaming up of actor Gyllenhaal and  Canadian director Dennis Villeneuve. Last fall they had a modest mainstream hit with the kidnap drama “Prisoners.” “Enemy,” by contrast, is aimed squarely at the art house crowd.

Adapted by Javier Gullon from Jose Saramago’s novel , “Enemy” centers on Adam (Gyllenhaal), a Toronto history professor whose specialty is the methodology by which totalitarian states control their populations. Adam is a rather nondescript academic who only gets excited when delving into his favorite subject.  At those times he seems borderline obsessed.

Adam seems to have little life off campus. He lives in a chilly, spartan apartment. He has a girlfriend, the cool blonde Mary (Melanie Laurent), but their relationship is less one of passion than of comfortable routine.

On the advice of a coworker, Adam rents a DVD of a period comedy, and is stunned to see himself as an extra, playing a bell hop in a 1920s hotel. A bit of research reveals the name of the actor, and suddenly Adam is consumed with finding out about his mystery double.

Melanie Laurant, Gyllenhaal

A bit of sleuthing (and a lot of stalking) reveal that his thespian twin is Anthony (Gyllenhaal again), who has a pregnant wife (Sarah Gadon), a nice apartment, and a history of philandering.

Adam begins phoning Anthony and eventually the two men agree to meet in neutral territory – a motel room outside the city.

As far as they can tell they are identical twins…right down to the same scar each has on his chest.

Adam is so freaked that he decides to end the relationship before it’s begun. But Anthony is intrigued. He’s an actor, after all, and now he decides to play the role of a stalker.  It doesn’t take him long to decide that he wants Adam’s girl, Mary. She’ll never know what hit her.

Are Adam and Anthony long-lost twins? Clones?

Sarah Gadon

Villeneuve – whose best film to date is the multi-generational Lebanese thriller “Incendies” — doesn’t really care. His concern here is building an overriding sense of discomfort and uncertainty in which everything from the pacing to the color pattern (a washed-out amber dominates) is carefully calibrated for disconcerting effect.

There’s also an unsettling undercurrent running throughout the film. Even before the story proper kicks in, we visit an underground sex club where well-to-do men gather to watch naked women masturbate and (talk about a specific fetish!) crush large spiders beneath their high heeled shoes.

Apparently the actor Anthony has visited this den of inequity; perhaps Adam is being pulled in as well. At the very least he has a vision of a room-sized spider, an image that plants us squarely in “Donnie Darko” territory.

“Enemy” is a head scratcher that will enthrall some viewers while alienating others. But whichever side you come down on, there’s no denying that Gyllenhaal’s dual performance (which blessedly employs relatively few special effects) is seductive and devastating.

| Robert W. Butler