Enemy

Enemy is the next film from the director of my personal favorite film of last year, Prisoners. The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal (by the way, that name is really hard to spell), Melanie Laurent, and Sarah Gadon. Now, I can't tell you much about the story without revealing too much. What I can tell you, however, is that Gyllenhaal finds an actor that looks just like him and becomes obsessed with finding him.

This is another film where you have to read a lot into it to full get the story. This one isn't as bad as last week's Under the Skin so you won't see two scores. I feel like this one isn't as symbolic as Under the Skin is, but it is still a really good film. There was a lot to like about this film and very little that I did not enjoy.  Gyllenhaal's performance is very good and since he is playing two people for most of the film, we get two really great performances out of him. There are moments where I got so into the character because of Gyllenhaal that I didn't even see Gyllenhaal at all, which is one of the biggest things you can say to an actor. He is slowly becoming my favorite modern actor.  Denis Villeneuve once again directs this film with care. You can tell that the guy really knows what he is doing behind the camera. He knows how to tell a really good story. The film is shot really well. In the cut I watched, everything has this yellow hue to it that looked  really amazing. The pace and the tone are, once again, great. You will be guessing all the way through the film, again much like Prisoners.

Now, the problem that I have with this film is that if you don't read into the film and look at symbolic nature of the film you really won't understand the film. However, symbols aren't as effective and well done as in Under the Skin. I know I  am really comparing Enemy to Under the Skin in this review, but it's the only way I can tell you about it. The only thing that is like is 2012's Drive. It has a lot of very good Art House tricks thrown in the film and you can read a lot into  those  things which is always good, but the film allows most people to get it without reading too much into it anyway. It creates this sorta of mixed bag of not fully commenting to a full art house film or a mainstream film. With say and done, I can actually give this one more of a recommendation then Under the Skin, but not by much. Overall I really enjoyed the film and is easily on my top 5 so far this year, but I can see this film being over looked.

RATING
3.25 out of 4 Ticket Stubs