Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

Enemy Blu-ray Movie Review

A tangled web.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 22, 2014

If you subscribe to satellite television or a major cable system, chances are you were inundated by “on demand” ads for Enemy, touting the fact that in home viewing was available on exactly the same day as the film’s (limited) theatrical release. What was interesting about these nonstop advertisements is that they proffered what seemed to be a kind of dark and twisted take on The Prince and the Pauper, where two look-alikes trade places with unexpected consequences. There was nary an attempt made to disclose what is arguably Enemy’s most memorable element, a kind of magical realism or even surrealism that would be more at home in a work of, say, Darren Aronofsky than in a by the numbers thriller (which is exactly what Enemy’s on demand advertisements made it seem like). The problem is these very elements stick out like a sore thumb (or at least like a mutant spider), evading accessibility and simply seeming to add to some general muddle. Enemy is a thriller with evident philosophical ambitions, but just what exactly that philosophy might be is anyone’s guess. Jake Gyllenhaal is on hand in a dual role as a mousy university professor and also as a not very successful actor whom the professor recognizes as his virtual double when the professor rents a DVD to break up what is by and large a stifling existence. Both the professor and the actor circle each other like wary though captivated combatants, but scenarist Javier Gullón (adapting José Saramago’s novel The Double) and director Denis Villenueve ( Prisoners) play it close to the vest in terms of who may be playing whom and what the actual game between these two doppelgangers may ultimately lead to. Add in a soupcon of intentionally provocative yet weirdly dissociative sexual imagery that recalls Eyes Wide Shut and a recurrent spider motif that is also intentionally provocative if finally more baffling than anything, and Enemy is certainly not just a dark and twisted take on The Prince and the Pauper.

Gullón and Villenueve actually seem to be offering up a dark and twisted take on Groundhog Day more than anything else as the first perplexing elements of Enemy start to unfold. After a baffling if undeniably disturbing prelude featuring Gyllenhaal arriving at some sort of voyeur party sex show (one which offers a first shadowy glimpse at the recurrent spider imagery), the film segues into the mundane life of history professor Adam Bell, a guy who either repeats the same lecture about history repeating itself or who may be caught in some kind of time loop where he himself is in an echo chamber of sorts. This is just one of many intentional ambivalences that Gullón and Villenueve offer in the film, and as most of the principal cast and crew are on record (in a supplement included on this Blu-ray) stating that even they are confused by certain elements in the film, it may be fruitless to offer a definitive analysis.

Adam seems to awake from a dream at one point, finding himself in a board room of sorts where an unidentified man starts quizzing him about his likes in movies, ultimately recommending a film called Where There’s A Will There’s A Way. Adam rents the film and shoos his attractive girlfriend Mary (Mélanie Laurent) away from her usual invitation for lovemaking in order to watch it. Here, again, the film is deliberately discursive, showing little snippets of the film and a scene which seems to indicate Adam watches it with no real reaction. Later, though, a whole sequence from the film plays out full screen (in a rather alarming color grading shift which will be discussed below in the video section), and it is at this moment that we realize a bit player in the film playing a bellhop in a hotel looks exactly like Adam.

That sets the film out on its supposed main focus, as Adam begins sleuthing to find out who this apparent double is. He soon tracks down an actor named Anthony Claire (also Jake Gyllenhaal, of course) and seems to want to make contact with him, though Adam’s more than evident neuroses repeatedly prevent him from doing so. Along the way, however, Adam makes contact with Anthony’s very pregnant wife Helen (Sarah Gadon), courtesy of an extremely confusing phone conversation where Helen insists that Adam is Anthony playing a joke on her. When Adam does finally make contact with Anthony, again courtesy of a phone call, Helen is there and no longer thinks it’s funny—she thinks it’s a deliberate ploy on Anthony’s part to hide an affair.

Without giving away too much of the subsequently unfolding events, Adam and Anthony engage in a cat and mouse (and/or mouse and cat) game, one where it becomes clear that while Adam is neurotic, his problems may pale in comparison to Anthony’s. Gullón and Villenueve continue to drop odd little clues along the way, including an offhanded comment from Adam’s mother (Isabella Rossellini in a glorified cameo) about him fantasizing about wanting to be a “third rate actor”, but nothing is ever delineated clearly enough to ever fully resonate. Enemy is undeniably moody, even spooky, but it’s often the result of a feeling of floundering helplessly in an oppressive environment from which there seems to be no escape.

The smartest thrillers that play on perception and ambivalence often offer two (or sometimes more) “solutions” to looking at things, any of which are equally comprehensible and meaningful. Enemy instead posits a whole raft of questions without providing any truly understandable answers. The film begins with an epigraph from Saramago which states “Chaos is order yet undeciphered”, but cynics may want to paraphrase Freud’s famous maxim about the cigar and say “Sometimes chaos is just chaos.” There are a lot of tantalizing elements in Enemy, but it’s obvious virtually from the get go that Gullón and Villenueve have little overt interest in deciphering anything (despite Villenueve's published claims to the contrary), leaving the viewer grasping for analytical straws where there indeed may be none. A huge gamut of analyses have sprung up in Enemy's wake, including everything from Adam and Anthony actually being the same character in the throes of a psychotic break to the entire film being a heavily veiled critique of totalitarianism. The questions may loom larger than the answers in Enemy, but that may be one of the most salient reasons the film musters such a weirdly hallucinogenic and hypnotic allure.

Enemy Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Enemy is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. If as has been posited Orange Is the New Black, I would submit that perhaps yellow is the new blue, for suddenly films with a thriller or mysterious edge are supplanting the ice cool hues that have been overused for years with a new, amber glow. Such widely disparate efforts as Blood Ties and The Bridge: The Complete First Season traffic in various shades of yellow, but nowhere is it more in evidence than in Enemy, which was shot digitally utilizing the Arri Alexa. With the exception of just one or two sequences, this film is virtually dripping in a sickly yellow to pea green ambience that makes everything appear to be seen through a weird miasma of sorts. This approach is obviously intentional (everything from the credits to the Blu-ray's insert are similarly saffron colored), but it does tend to rob the image of some significant fine detail, an anomaly that's further exacerbated by Villenueve's tendency to film in near darkness quite a bit of the time. Extreme close-ups still can reveal very good to excellent fine detail (see screenshot 19). Several of the establishing shots of Ontario are so bathed in this odd hue that it almost looks like we're seeing a smog laden view of Beijing instead, something that tends to mask the first view of a giant spider overhanging the metropolis. There are some notable exceptions, none more evident than the sequence from the film that Adam watches where he first sees Anthony. This section at least approximates "normal" color, as does a later snippet that features Anthony on a motorcycle. Despite the really aggressive color grading, the image otherwise has no issues to speak of, offering good stability and no compression artifacts to note.

Enemy Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Enemy's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is rather nuanced, with nice effects like "thunks" and LFE suddenly emitting from discrete channels or the subwoofer and adding a bit of menace to the already unsettling atmosphere. There's some good attention to ambient environmental sounds and general sound effects as well, including things like an impressive pan of Anthony's motorcycle roaring down a freeway. Dialogue and score are both cleanly and clearly presented on this problem free track.

Enemy Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Lucid Dreams: The Making of Enemy (1080p; 17:22) is quite interesting, letting the viewer off the hook somewhat by including lots of commentary on how impenetrable and unanswerable several of the film's elements turn out to be.

Enemy Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Some may read this review and come to the conclusion that I didn't much like Enemy, but that's actually not the case. I was intrigued and perplexed by the film in about equal measure, and I would be the last person to deny the film's absolutely disturbing mood. But that doesn't necessarily mean this is some Mensa-esque etude that requires poking around the soft underbelly of a giant mutant spider. For probably any hypothesis on what Enemy "means", there is going to be a resounding chorus of "Yeah, but. . ." pointing out flaws or at least fissures in that take. That means that many viewers will simply have to leave their need for ultimate answers at the virtual door, for there may be none here. Enemy is definitely an unsettling experience, but whether that feeling leads to any kind of catharsis may be debatable. Technical merits here are generally strong, though one needs to keep the film's intentionally bizarre color grading in mind to fully accept some aspects of the video quality. For those in search of something a little (a lot?) different if for no one else, Enemy comes Recommended.