Enemy

2013 18+ Canada, Spain

90 min. Deni Vilnov

Jake Gyllenhaal's character has to face himself in this psychological thriller from the director of Prisoners. Adam, the history teacher, has always been a decent person, about whom you can immediately tell that he is a quiet and innocent guy. However, his character changes very dramatically when he becomes a participant in an absolutely incomprehensible, almost mystical situation. Having once bought a DVD at a rental, Adam sees ... himself in one of the frames. It turns out that an actor named Anthony owns his appearance. The investigation and attempt at self-identification leads the hero to a psychological impasse and he succumbs to psychosis. Read more Having played with the nerves and emotions of the audience with his film "Prisoners" (2013), the Canadian in the film "The Enemy" takes as a basis the book of the Portuguese Jose Samarago. Having worked successfully in the previous film with Jake Gyllenhaal, the director cast him in the lead role in this film. During the recruitment of the cast, all members of the film crew, and primarily the artists, signed a document on non-disclosure. This was done in order to prevent a spoiler that could reveal the meaning of the spiders featured in the thriller. In addition, it was forbidden to even mention the presence of spiders in the film. In addition to Jake, Javier Bardem and Christian Bale were also invited for the main role. The former refused because he did not dare to play such a character, the latter could not due to his schedule of future projects. It is interesting that the work on the film took place in the same period as another, slightly similar project from Richard Ayoadi ("Double"). High-quality directing and "his own prism" of Villeneuve's past works allowed him, as well as "Prisoners", to enter several international film festivals with a tape about doppelgangers. This eventually won him several awards for both directing and acting. In particular, we can mention the success at the Toronto film festival, which takes place on Denis Villeneuve's native land.