Enemy
Short description
Adam is a history professor whose life is quiet and uneventful, his days divided between lectures, marking papers and a strained relationship with his girlfriend Mary. Watching a film one night, he notices an actor who looks exactly like him, and the resemblance becomes an fixation. He sets out to track the man down, learns that his name is Anthony, and discovers that the two share far more than a face, including a voice that sounds the same. Anthony is initially reluctant, then agrees to meet, and the encounter between the two men grows increasingly strange as Adam also takes an interest in Anthony's pregnant wife, Helen.
Denis Villeneuve directed the film, the sixth of the thirteen features he has made in chronological order, arriving between Prisoners and Sicario. Javier Gullón wrote the screenplay, and Niv Fichman and Miguel A. Faura produced. Jake Gyllenhaal plays both Adam and Anthony, with Mélanie Laurent as Mary, Sarah Gadon as Helen and Isabella Rossellini as Adam's mother. The production was a Spanish, Canadian and French co-production made for about four million dollars, and it took roughly three million dollars worldwide, so it did not recover its budget in cinemas.
The film runs ninety-one minutes and belongs to the mystery and thriller genres. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.9 from around 238,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.8 from a much smaller base of about 6,600. A critics' rating of 6.6 from 119 reviews places it slightly below both audience scores, suggesting a moderately favourable but not enthusiastic reception.
What's left behind the scenes
- According to director Denis Villeneuve, the lead role was offered to Javier Bardem, but the actor felt he was not suitable for the part. Christian Bale was also offered the lead role, but he had to decline due to scheduling conflicts.
- The entire cast signed a non-disclosure agreement prohibiting them from explaining the meaning of the spiders in the film to the press.
- When Anthony calls Adam, they agree to meet on Sunday, an hour's drive from the city. As Adam drives to the meeting place, a billboard is visible in the background displaying the current date – July 13, 2012. This date was a Friday, not a Sunday.
- The characters use the Google search engine to find information about each other. It can be noticed that the search engine uses an intelligent search system that did not exist at the time the film's events take place.
- At the 75th minute, Helen (Sarah Gadon) puts on a dark top over her bare body, but in the following shots, bra straps can be seen underneath it.
- Sarah Gadon, who played Helen, tried to convince director Denis Villeneuve that the film did not actually need a scene in which she appeared nude. Villeneuve disagreed with her, and eventually a compromise solution was found – it would be just one shot, and even then, only Helen’s silhouette would be shown. Given her character’s pregnancy, Gadon was given a special prosthetic belly, and the prosthetic looked so realistic, and the actress herself liked herself so much with it, that she changed her mind and asked Villeneuve to show her on screen nude with the prosthetic.
- A film adaptation of José Saramago’s novel “The Double” (O Homem Duplicado, 2002).
- The giant spider walking through the city is a reference to Louise Bourgeois’ monumental sculpture "Maman".
- At the 5-minute mark of the film, during the lecture, Professor Bell stands in front of a blackboard on which are written concepts and the names of philosophers. The name of the German philosopher Fichte is misspelled – Fitche.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
