Enemy  ★★★ (Warning: Spoilers at end of review)

THE mystery thriller Enemy starts in a dark room with a bunch of men sitting around a central podium upon which a naked woman in high heels crushes spiders…after that it gets really weird.

This film was made by French-Canadian Dennis Villeneuve, a terrific director who has also made Incendies, Prisoners, Sicario and Arrival..

It is one of his early films and marked him as an idiosyncratic story-teller who isn’t afraid to expect much from his audiences. Villeneuve’s films are like an ear wig, slowly boring their way into your brain and causing a nagging, uncomfortable feeling.

The feeling eventually goes away, but you are left with the lingering experience of having watched something different and interesting, both in a narrative sense and visually.

In Enemy, Jake Gylenhall plays a university professor with a pregnant girlfriend. He appears to be depressed, going through the motions of a life that doesn’t particularly interest him and rarely connecting with any other person.

During one uncomfortable discussion in the staff room over lunch, a fellow lecturers recommends a couple of films to him. Bored late one night he watches one of the film and sees an extra in the background of one scene who looks uncannily like him. He googles the actor and watches two other films.

Fascination with the revelation that he has doppelganger, the man decides to find the other actor and share the experience. But fascination leads to obsession and a mind-bending series of events that lead to one of the most bizarre film endings in a long time.

As with all Villeneuve’s films, Enemy is well made and mesmerising to watch. But, unlike say Prisoners or Sicario, it is much less accessible to audiences. Basically, you’re going to like it or hate it. Notice I didn’t say love it because I think few people will.

To me the film is most comparable in style and tone to Brian Grazer’s Under The Skin of a few years ago which starred Scarlett Johannsen. See it if you’re in the mood to spend the days following perplexed.

*** SPOILER ALERT – READ NO FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW THE FILM’S ENDING OR WHAT THE HELL IT MAY BE ABOUT ***

This is one of those films that warrants the reviewer giving their take on the ending and preceding events. There are theories about twins, ghosts and hallucinations. I have not read the book upon which the script is based and have a different theory. that may be completely wrong but is wackier, more interesting and still fits the narrative.

In my opinion, hence why I compared it to Under The Skin, Gylenhall’s professor is an alien living secretly on Earth in human form. He has got a woman pregnant as an extension of his experimental visit but has also developed some feelings for her. When he sees the doppelganger he thinks another alien may have copied the same body as the one he chose to inhabit.

He is initially interested in meeting the other alien, but eventually realises it comes from a different civilisation of aliens that are enemies. These aliens usually look like spiders, hence why he enjoys organising spider-crushing parties. But it is too late. The alien enemy is closing in on him. At film’s end he discovers his wife is also from the same alien civilisation as his enemy, hence why when he goes into her room to find her at the end he is confronted by a huge spider.

What’s your take on the film? I’d love to know.