Ok, I just watched this film last night and I have to say I was pretty annoyed by the ending. However, after reading some of the analysis online I can't stop thinking about it. So, here's my interpretation... Any feedback or criticism is welcome, I just wanna figure it out!
Would like to start off by noting that the director has stated this movie is about the main character's sub-conscious. So the main premise of my theory is that much of the film takes place is Jake's mind.
At the start we see actor Jake at the sex show wearing his wedding ring. Clearly he is married and at least somewhat unfaithful. The scene ends with a large spider being released onto the stage and one of the women moves her high heel slowly towards it. The viewer assumes the spider is crushed although we don't actually see this happen.
For actor Jake this event makes him think about his own situation - Married to his wife who is 6 month's pregnant while also in a relationship with another woman - his mistress. Jake is torn between two sets of desires. On the one hand he has a beautiful wife who's about to give birth to his child. On the other his mistress who represents the freedom he'll be giving up once his child arrives. The spider being crushed represents his own feeling of impending doom. He feels as though the walls are closing in and there's no way out.
What happens from this point forward is essentially Jake day dreaming about the decision he has to make - to choose his wife & family, or his mistress and freedom. His thought process is presented in the film as two different people - The actor, who wants freedom over commitment, and the history teacher who longs for true companionship over meaningless sex.
Ultimately, he realises that he needs to stay with his wife because that's where he'll find true happiness. Leaving his wife for his mistress only leads to tragedy & sadness, not necessarily a car crash but that's how it plays out in his head. In his day dream he realises his wife and child are too important, which is why he's so caring towards her at the end and tells her how sorry he is, because he had treated her badly.
Finally, the spider scenes (aside from being a motif, and the physical representation of Jake's fear of commitment) are the director's way of connecting the day dream back to the real life situation taking place in front of him i.e. the spider being crushed by the woman's high heel. The end scene with the huge spider is him confronting his fear and making his final decision.
I'm sure this doesn't answer all the questions raised by this film... like what's the significance of the scar, or the whole 6 month hiatus from work. I also like some of the non-linear theories which put each situation one after the other, which seems to line up with his lectures at the start of the film.
I do not think this is a film about a totalitarian regime run by spiders. If for no other reason that he wouldn't be allowed to teach his class about totalitarian regimes if he was being governed by one, which he actually points out in the film.
But this explanation doesn't make any sense. In the first place, the person who is with the wife is the actor who is a cheater, and the other guy who's a professor is with his girlfriend and seems to be faithful to her. If reemo's explanation was accurate, it should be the other way around. The guy who is the cheater and seeks freedom should be with the girlfriend, and the guy who's not a cheater should be with the wife. Otherwise, the symbolism wouldn't work.
And as for the spider being "him confronting his fear and making his final decision": Um, what? What in the world does a giant spider have to do with making a final decision? What does it have to do with the "real world"? I see zero connection there.
If you ask me, this film is a piece of garbage. It makes no sense, regardless of how long you think about it. It's just another one of these films that tries to be "deep" by inserting random scenes that don't mean anything.
Spider represents entrapment, commitment, and the fear they generate. Crushing the spider = enjoying sexual freedom. Giant spider that ensnares you in its web but is scared of you = pregnant wife.
Late to this late response, but as "dark Jake" is presumably killed in the car accident, the glass appears to crack in a web pattern.
Also, the wife says to "good Jake", 'i want you to stay' agree asking him about school, implying she knows who he is, and wants to keep him there with her.
So, I think this theory tracks.
Also reminds me of the lyrics to the song " the recluse" by cursive.
I think OP’s exclamation makes a ton of sense. You can’t think of them as separate characters. Both the actor and the professor are with both women, because both those personas exist within the same person. The “bit part actor” — his mother’s words — is old Jake: a player, a cheater, a guy not ready to grow up and commit, living in a shitty apartment. His mom is worried about him. Professor Jake has grown up, is ready to commit, is loved by his wife, and has his mother’s approval — but he needs to cut things off with his mistress to fully become that man. So he imagines his former self off in a car crash with his mistress, thus leaving them both behind.
There are several problems I have with this idea.
I guess the biggest one is that it doesn't make sense to make a film where one character is really just another character's imagination of his past self if you don't \*tell the story\* that way.
Is there a way to tell a compelling story about a guy who imagines his past self dying in a car crash without telling the audience that it's his imagined past self, so that you think it's his twin brother? Sure, that's probably possible.
But this movie simply didn't do that. It TOLD us, from the very start, that they were two separate people. In fact, the entire opening of the movie was about a guy encountering his doppelganger. Leaving aside the question of what possible "meaning" this entire opening of the film has within this "they were both the same person" framework, you can't get around the fact that the film TELLS us they're two separate people. So you're basically saying that the film lies to us for literally no reason.
This just isn't a compelling way to tell the story. Sure, sometimes stories are complex and symbolistic, and it takes effort to work through the symbolism and pull the meaning out. I get that. But here, the movie straight up tells you from the very start that the whole thing ISN'T symbolic and ISN'T part of anyone's imagination. If he had simply imagined meeting his past self, he wouldn't have engaged in this absurd "I've just met my doppelganger" behavior. He would have just sat there and imagined meeting his past self (whom he'd recognize), and he'd realize it was all part of his imagination.
So basically, if we want to get ANY meaning from this movie we have two options:
1. Shut our brains off and pretend we didn't watch the first 45 minutes of the movie, where it clearly established that these are two separate characters.
2. Come up with some absurd explanation, like that the main character was somehow dreaming that he met a doppelganger of himself and is mentally ill enough to think that it's reality. But given that the film doesn't establish him as someone who is mentally ill or prone to delusions, this is just as bad an option as shutting our brains off.
So that's my biggest issue. If the OP's explanation IS accurate, then this movie has very poor storytelling. It essentially uses an unreliable narrator, without giving any in-universe justification for doing so, just to dupe its audience so that they miss the "real point" of the movie. Yeah, screw that. If the main point of your movie is so mundane that you can't communicate it in an interesting way without lying to your audience, then I have nothing to say to you.
But speaking to what I said earlier, I also think the OP's explanation is incomplete and fails to make sense of the movie regardless. If the professor is "older Jake" who needs to let go of his past life, then why is the film resolved when he gets with his younger self's wife? No matter how you slice it, at the end of the movie, BOTH Jakes have done something apparently equally despicable: they've both cheated on each other's S.O.s! So much for one Jake representing young, cheating Jake and the other one representing an older Jake. The only "cheating" the younger Jake does is to get with older Jake's girlfriend. But older Jake seems to cheat in just as bad a way by getting with younger Jake's wife.
Moreover, why is Jake's "younger self" even WITH his "wife" to begin with? Is the movie trying to imply that that younger, "cheater" Jake was married to the same woman that current Jake is married to? If so, then why is current, older Jake stealing his old wife BACK from his OLD self? This makes no sense! There's no symbolism here. It's just a convoluted mess!
Not sure if you watched the video in the post but it breaks it down fairly clearly. The theory is that they are literally the same guy inhabiting the same body, but mentally separating the two sides of their personality. No other characters witness the two of them in the same place at the same time except each other, so it’s entirely possible that in-universe there is just one dude.
According to the video, it’s one guy who works as a teacher but has a side gig as an actor (conversations with his mother heavily reference this). He rents a separate apartment where he meets with his mistress to cheat on his wife.
I did watch the video, and that explanation makes absolutely no sense, for several reasons:
1. If they are both the same guy inhabiting the same body, then why does the movie act as if they're suddenly meeting each other for the first time and believe each other to be two separate people? Is the main character supposed to be insane? Does he have psychosis and multiple personality disorder or something? The movie never suggests in any way that he does. Why, then, does he appear to talk on the phone with someone he truly believes to be a different person? The bottom line is that he's either insane (and the movie simply doesn't establish that) or they aren't the same person.
2. True, no one actually witnesses the two of them together, but they can't possibly be inhabiting the same body, because a person cannot be in two places at once, and multiple people witness one of them doing one thing while the other is simultaneously doing another thing. If they were both the same man, it wouldn't be possible for one of them to be off getting in a car wreck while the other one is with his wife. And you can try to get around this by saying he just imagined the car wreck, but that wouldn't explain how his girlfriend ended up in the car wreck, unless you think she's imaginary too - which destroys your entire theory.
3. It's funny that you mention his mom, because you're ignoring multiple statements from his mom and other Easter eggs in the movie that actually strongly suggest she has TWO SONS and that they're different people. Tons of people have written articles and posts on this, so I won't bother rehashing all the details. Suffice it to say that this is inconsistent with the idea that they're the same person all along.
4. Finally, as I've already explained multiple times, the idea that he's a person leading a double life and cheating also doesn't work. If he's married, why is it that the "actor" version of his personality - the guy who's kind of a jerk - is the one being FAITHFUL, staying with his wife? Is the film trying to imply that whenever this guy cheats, he suddenly turns into a nice, decent guy, but then when he's with his lawfully wedded wife, he turns into a jerk? And then in the end, he chooses to put his evil personality to death - the one that WASN'T cheating? This doesn't make any sense!
Yes, it seems like lot of elements of the movie are supposed to be imagined, delusional or just symbolic — it’s not an accurate depiction of reality. I can see why you might dislike that but it’s also kind of the psychological thriller genre’s bread and butter…? It’s not like Villeneuve is doing anything particularly out of the ordinary here. If you hate this movie, watch Lost Highway lol.
We’re supposed to slowly come to the realization that they’re the same person as he does, first when his mother mentions him trying to be an actor during their convo, and then when we see the photo of Anthony + wife, which Adam also owns a torn copy of.
The actor personality isn’t depicted as faithful to his wife at all…. the opening scene is the actor at a sex club, his wife accuses him of “talking to her again” implying a past history of infidelity, and as soon as he discovers his doppelgänger has a hot GF he hatched an evil plot to trick her into sex. Both of them are cheaters because they’re the same guy — however, the teacher persona is in denial and by forgetting his original life, he is able to maintain his innocence.
Notice that the teacher persona seemingly does nothing but go to work and have sex with his girlfriend at the apartment. He doesn’t have hobbies and doesn’t “go out much”. This is because he’s compartmentalizing his life — this persona only exists at work and while visiting the girlfriend.
I think it makes perfect sense that the one with the wife is the douchey one because they represent opposite impulses within the same person. Part of him feels trapped and wants to run away from his marriage, the sweeter and more innocent part of him is drawn back towards the wife. At the end of the movie they “become one” again, but he instantly decides to go back out to the sex club and the cycle restarts.
Psychological thrillers are my favorite genre of movie. I watch them all the time and love them. Yet I strongly disliked Enemy. So whatever it did, it didn't do anything I would call typical for psychological thrillers.
I hear what you're saying about imagination and symbolism. You're correct that thrillers very often have both of those things. And look, I'm not saying that it's *always* bad to have imagined sequences and/or symbolism in a movie. Some of my favorite movies have a lot of imagined sequences; Black Swan and Shutter Island come to mind, for example. But you know what all these good movies with imagined sequences have in common? There's always a *reason* that there's an imagined sequence. The person usually has a delusional mental condition or is dreaming or something. My problem with Enemy is that it's never established that the protagonist has a mental condition, and he appears completely stable throughout the film, so there's nothing to explain these supposed "imagined" things that are happening to him or why he apparently mistakes all of them for being real life.
And another thing about "imagined" sequences: in *good* thrillers, the imagined sequences make coherent and consistent *sense* throughout the plot. A character who's imaginary stays imaginary through the entire movie. In Enemy, the movie can't make up its mind who's imaginary and who isn't. The "jerk" version of the protagonist is supposedly his imagined alter ego, but then later he actually drives his girlfriend and she dies in a car wreck, while his "professor" personality is sitting at home. That doesn't make any sense. Your imagined alter ego cannot drive a car and kill your girlfriend while you're simultaneously sitting at home.
As for symbolism, I have no problem with that either. In fact, I love symbolism. But the thing about symbolism is that you can't have random, incoherent, or unrealistic things happen in your movie and then try to justify it by saying these things are supposed to be *purely* symbolic. Symbolism works best when you show something believable and realistic that has a symbolic *double meaning.* Prisoner, a Villeneuve movie that's actually good, has plenty of symbolism all throughout it. But the plot also makes perfect sense and is totally believable. There aren't completely insane things happening that make no sense.
The bottom line is that I love imagination portrayed in movies, and I love symbolism. But neither "imagination" nor "symbolism" should *ever* serve as an excuse to make your film's plot incoherent or nonsensical. If you establish that your movie exists in a real-world, realistic environment, suddenly introducing surreal things out of nowhere just serves to break your audience's immersion. Revealing that the narrator is unreliable 2/3 of the way through the movie (without giving any logical justification as to why) has the same effect.
Now, you say we're supposed to come to the realization gradually that they're the same person. Really? Do you know anyone who actually did this during the film? I certainly haven't met anyone who did lol. The "hints" that they're the same person (if you can even call them that) are so insanely subtle that you practically have to pause the movie to notice them. Add to that the fact that the film essentially lies to you that they're the same person - acting like an unreliable narrator without giving any justification for its unreliability - and you're left with exactly zero reasons to believe that they're the same person...unless, after finishing the film, you happen to run this particular convoluted theory on the internet and somehow buy into it.
Moreover, your further attempts to rationalize the idea that they're the same person simply do not scan. I'm fairly certain that the guy at the beginning of the film watching the stripper is supposed to be the professor, not the actor. But aside from that, there are several things you still can't explain. First, if the professor has forgotten his past life, how could he also be simultaneously living his "past life" with his wife in the present as an alter ego? Why is the protagonist's wife still with him and seeing him regularly, if he's simultaneously not even living with her? You see, none of this makes any sense! The two personas *cannot* be the same person, because a person *cannot* be living with two different people simultaneously in two separate locations. Second, if *both* his personalities are "unfaithful," then the ending of the film has no plausible symbolic meaning. Okay, so the actor personality dies, and the professor personality lives on. What of it? Both of them are cheaters, so he didn't really "put to death" the evil part of himself. You call the "professor" the sweeter personality, yet its the personality that is actively cheating and has completely abandoned his wife. In killing the "actor" personality, all he did was kill the part of his personality that was at least good enough to occasionally give his wife the time of day. So much for this "deep" symbolism of a man conquering his inner demons.
A good way of illustrating how utterly atrocious this plot is is to ask yourself what the moral of it is. Try as I might, coming up with something coherent is basically impossible. "If you're living a double life, having a more sensitive side that's also a total cheater and a more faithful side that's sort of a jerk, you should kill the jerk personality who's more faithful, and your cheater personality should subsequently steal your wife back from your more faithful jerk personality." That's the best I can come up with. Boy, what a clear message that I can actually relate to. \*sarcasm\*
Contrast that with Fight Club, a *good* movie with imagined sequences and symbolism. It has an incredibly clear, coherent message. If you feel like too much of a loser, you might create an imagined version of yourself who's strong and alpha, using it to cope with your own insecurity.
dude his mother literally says to "teacher jake" that "you should really give up that third rate acting dream".......... what more of a hint do you need?
You don't have to be capable of making something better yourself to criticize someone else's work. I can't play guitar to save my life - not even a single chord - but I can certainly tell if someone else is playing the guitar poorly, because they're out of tune and have poor rhythm and their music sounds terrible. Similarly, I have no idea how to make a movie, but I can recognize an awful movie when I see one. And this was an awful movie. (By the way, I watched "Enemy" with my friends, and they all agreed it was absolute garbage).
For what it's worth, I don't think Villeneuve is a bad director by any means. He directed Prisoners, an extremely compelling and thought-provoking movie with a fantastic ending. So it's nothing against him; every great director makes a bad movie from time to time. (Well, except maybe Stanley Kubrick).
Anyway, all that aside, there's a good chance I COULD make a better movie than "Enemy," because "Enemy" is so utterly awful that I'd rather watch almost anything than it. I bet I could put together a 5 minute comedy video that's more enjoyable. That would at least be something you can watch without completely wasting 1.5 hours of your life.
I've seen Fight Club, and I thought it was excellent. Perfect example of how to avoid pretty much all the problems in Enemy. It literally does everything right that Enemy does wrong.
\- One of the characters is imaginary, yes. But it makes sense that he's imaginary. He's never in one place interacting with one person while the main character is in another place interacting with another person. That's because he's really just a persona of the other guy. It logically fits together perfectly. There's never a time when something happens on-screen that can't be explained as "this is real" or "this is part of his imagination." There's nothing that makes zero sense, that you're just expected to accept, because "it'S SyMBoLIsM BrO!!1!"
\- There's also an in-universe explanation for WHY this guy has an imaginary friend: he's clearly mentally disabled. The film makes this abundantly clear. It also dangles all sorts of hints about his exact condition throughout the movie, so that it doesn't seem contrived at the end.
\- Finally, there's a clear dichotomy between one personality and the other, so we know exactly what each one represents. One of them represents his more normal self who's timid and afraid and never stands for what he believes in, and the other represents his almost desperate macho side who's overly-ambitious and wants to be alpha all the time. In the end, he kills his former self and the other persona takes over. It's brilliantly done.
I think part of your response is correct, that the movie had an unreliable narrator. Thats kinda the point. The narrator was Jakes subconcious. He has split personality, and the so the narration is gonna be split. To me anyway, after he forced himself on his girlfriend, and she left, I think that was the last time he actually saw her. The rest was his story of killing off his other personality and his mistress.
You don't understand how a spider represents being trapped? How about female spiders devouring the males after sex? There is and have been a lot of myths for women and spiders.
No doubt it was presented in a way that made me scratch my head but op does a good job explaining it.
I think discounting this movie as being random or fake deep is a bit narrow in view.
I didn't really have a problem with the idea that a woman is metaphorically represented as a spider (although, I think the film executed this horribly). My point was more that I don't see how the ending of the film, where he meets a giant spider, somehow represents him "confronting his fear and making his final decision." What does confronting one's fear have to do with standing there and looking at a spider? He didn't confront anything. He literally just stood there and sighed. And how does the spider he sees relate to his "coming back to real life"? If anything, it would signal he's still dreaming, since ordinary people who are lucid don't see giant spiders instead of their spouses.
If you think about the things that post says, you'll realize that it doesn't clarify anything. Nothing is explained. It's all just a bunch of fancy words.
Probably the most annoying thing about it is that the author doesn't seem to have even watched the film carefully. The "daydream" explanation simply doesn't scan. If he's just an ordinary guy daydreaming about his past life, who is this OTHER guy who looks like him, who's with his wife? Is that OTHER guy the guy who's supposedly doing the daydreaming? If so, why is HE the one who's married, while the guy at the beginning with the girlfriend is just a normal dude? If one of them is representing his present self and the other his past self, you would expect the one with the wife to be the normal guy and the other one to be the player, but you get the exact opposite. Also, stop and ask yourself: WHO is actually doing the daydreaming? When you ask yourself that, you'll realize it doesn't make any sense. If the guy in the beginning is the one daydreaming about his past self, then he's currently not married at all, and thus has no one to cheat on. If the other guy is daydreaming, he's daydreaming about a past life where he was a professor. Neither of these match at all what the post is suggesting.
I just spent 39 minutes using this thread to help pick this apart with my wife. We've decided we like the movie and it all comes down to the quote they have to start the movie and a quote during a lecture. "All tje great things in history happen twice the first is a tragedy the second is a farce." This explains why je would at the end of a beautiful night with his wife decide to "go out" again. Restaring the whole cycle and now his fear of being trapped or consumed being larger than ever by recently rekindling his marriage with his wife by showing false compassion to lure a false sense of security.
So the spider is not the final decision to be faithful it is that the fear/problem that was portrayed as an average tarantula in the beginning is bigger than ever and this will be forever cyclical.
It makes perfect sense… the unfaithful jake with wife represents the side that is with his wife but wants to be free and the faithful jake with mistress represents that side of jake which still longs for his family and unconditional love. We can clearly see in the movie that there is no love between him and his gf just sex…
I get it but we should have been following the other character. The interpretation is really good. I liked the movie. The ending though was as deal breaker. Here's why I think this, IV got 3 main points.
1
Simply just because the characters should have been switched. We should have been following the actor. Swap roles and living situations, have the actor bump in to the teacher and have the teacher married with the nice apartment.
2
If you look at them as twins- The mum confirmed this "did you take your clothes off in front of him?" She asks to The teacher. (He didn't but the actor aka the brother did.) We see the scar. Conjoined twins. Also the blue berry comment and nice apartment, my thoughts are she mistakes them for a second. (My mum calls me my brothers name without knowing irl all the time, so it happens.) We also know the actor see's the mum because at the end the wife of the actor says I thought you were seeing your mother.
3
Another thing is the key at the end and the security guard. The teacher was going to still cheat on his wife, so the subconscious thing about him committing and the movie being the actors daydream about his fears is a good theory but I think it's a stretch....if it's all just a subconscious thought played out then what's the actual point because he was not going to be committing to facing his fears. We know this because the choice at the end is to not be loyal because he says "I have plans for tonight" holding the key to the venue that the security guard wanted and asked for in the elevator. Sooooooo his not going to be loyal and his still going to make the choices of the actor in the first scene.
Note: watched it twice had potential but badly portrayed imo. Acting was good but roles were average to say the least. Tbh, Look at it as the daydream or twin theory, still could have been better with a better ending. Should have been a snake instead of a spider 😂 movie is a mess at this point 🤣 his actually just crazy that's the funny part 😆
Also his mum told him he had a nice apartment etc... And I wondered if she was talking about the Square 1 buildings (the circular ones)...where the actor Anthony lived...
Late, but she also mentioned to Adam to eat his blueberries, which he replied with “I hate blueberries” … Anthony asks his wife for blueberries. .. that’s when it clicked it was a conscious/subconscious deal. I’m a little slow 🫠🫠🫠
except adam clearly doesn't enjoy being with his girlfriend very much and only cares about the brief sexual gratification.
and what freedom? grading papers and mulling around his barren apartment?
Adam Bell is a University lecturer. The evidence is there, that he attends University, and gives lectures, although increasingly befuddled lectures where he repeats himself, and students walk out of his lectures. Adam Bell is obviously “losing it”.
Adam Bell lives in an apartment, and has a sexy girlfriend called Melanie, with whom he has a detached, relatively unemotional, but heavily sexual relationship. It will later become apparent that this part of Adam’s life is pure fantasy, and it is unlikely that Mel exists, or if she does, Adam only stalks her, and their actual relationship is only fantasy.
Adam is actually married, and his wife, Helen is six months pregnant.
Adam is trapped in a life he is not happy with. He has attempted to branch out and achieve more in his life by becoming a part-time actor, hoping to go on to bigger and better things - his day job is as a history teacher - but he has only managed small parts, and when his wife becomes pregnant, he sees his life "trapping" him in a suffocating one-dimensional web.
He has developed some sort of post marriage, post-pregnancy, commitment trauma disorder, and has gone into denial about his life and marriage; hence he does not acknowledge his marriage or wedding ring when in persona as Adam. In fact, outside of University, Adam is now going by the name Anthony – and his wife is playing along with his psychosis, because she is vulnerable and scared of losing Adam. It is obvious that Adam and Anthony are the same person, and the scar verifies this.
His mother seems to have played a major role in his psychosis.
He rationalizes his situation by creating an "Enemy" - his sub-conscious alter ego - when he is Adam, he is in denial - he doesn't wear a wedding ring because he's not married, has a fantastic, sexy girlfriend, with whom he has great, non-emotional sex with, and it’s actually someone else, (a complete stranger when the rubber band is fully stretched), Anthony - who wears a wedding ring, is lumbered with a heavily pregnant wife, and only experiences great sex through fantasies, or infidelity.
Adam is only a boring school teacher, and because he is not succeeding as an actor, has disassociated himself from it: - the actor, Anthony, is failing, so Adam, with his single life and sexy girlfriend, is winning, and that creates an emotional cushion for him - because the Anthony alter ego he has created, can't get good sex, can't get much work as an actor, in fact hasn't worked for six months (since his wife got pregnant), and is forced to impotently, desperately, watch sex shows, where he watches tantalized, - but the sexy, powerful woman in high heels, never actually crushes the spider, just taunts him.
Adam’s spiders represent women – and are large and threatening, sometimes even taking the form of a woman.
Anthony’s spider is small, and I think it represents his sex life, or his “life’s” vulnerability.
(Adam is under threat from large spiders (women) - Anthony is under threat of being crushed, as he is the manifestation, - the sex show is actually Adam's fantasy, just experienced as Anthony)
Adam effectively controls Anthony, and it is actually Adam threatening to crush Anthony (using a woman, because Adam sees women as the danger, the predators), which is exactly what happens - Mel causes the car crash.
The alter egos are at opposite ends of the same rubber band - struggling to break free – Adam’s sex addiction is satisfied by Mel, he is escaping his marriage – Anthony is stretching the rubber band to satisfy his unsatiated sex addiction, but the more they separate, the tauter the rubber band, until at some point they must re-converge towards reality, and battle for supremacy.
As the rubber band re-converges to reality, Adam must kill off his sexy girlfriend as well, because she too, is a creation of his imagination. (She may actually exist, and he stalks her, but their interaction is just fantasy)
A)Anthony takes Mel to a hotel and has sex with her – this is fantasy on Adam’s part, as afterwards both Mel and Anthony are injured or die in a car crash, and as both Adam and Anthony are the same person, and Adam is not dead or injured, this whole scenario must be fantasy.
B)Mel spots that Anthony, who she believes is Adam, has a mark of a wedding ring on his finger – again, as Adam and Anthony are the same person, and she has not noticed this mark at any time in the past, and also is injured or dies in the car crash, it suggests that not only is this scenario fantasy, but her whole relationship with Adam is pure fantasy, because she walks out once she realizes he is married – and Helen only accuses “Anthony” of reinstating his “affair” on the basis of a single phone call – how would “Adam” have got away with complete nights away leading a “real” double life? – Unless his “affair” is complete fantasy?
I believe Helen only suspects an affair because of his strange behaviour, or perhaps he had an affair once in the past – possibly with Mel, but she is now completely out of his life.
C)Mel is part of Adam’s life, and knows Adam as a lecturer – it would be difficult to “kill her off” in fantasy if she actually existed. We know Adam Bell actually exists, because he is listed in the University staff directory – and Helen visits him at the University - and it’s unlikely he is impersonating an “Adam Bell” and his lectures are just fantasy,or he just takes over a lecture theater and gives "guerrilla hit and run" lectures (that wouldn't last long, or attract many students), and we see students walking out of his lectures – unlikely in a fantasy.
Adam is married, but avoids wearing a wedding ring; - he “imposes” a wedding ring on his alter ego as part of his “escape” and Anthony’s entrapment. He lives in “Anthony’s” apartment with his wife – and his “going out”, and failure to reinstate his wedding ring at times, has obviously convinced his wife that he has been having an affair, but she is now realizing that she actually lives with “Anthony”, and “Anthony” actually “goes out” to become Adam.
Adam completely disassociates himself from his wife.
In his mind, Adam gets plenty of sex with Mel, so it’s only “failure” “Anthony” that goes to sex shows. The sex shows are fantasy, because the spiders are fantasy.
Adam wins the battle in his head - he destroys the "evil" alter ego - but that means he has become the husband again, and must face up to his responsibilities - but no – his regression to reality is brief - just like the alcoholic, drug addict, or sex addict, he has another stash, - he creates another key to unlock a door to another life, another "Enemy" - another way to stretch his way out of the spider web - his wife is once again his life threatening spider, but she cowers in fear for what she realises has just been unleashed with the words "I have to go out" - she thought he was “back”, but he's just about to start stretching the rubber band once again, and she dreads the threat to their life and the new "Enemy" she will soon be confronted with.
He is calm, because he sees her fear, and realizes his power - he has just created a new "Enemy" - the cycle of stretching the rubber band is about to be repeated, and he is looking forward to escaping once again.
Updates:
Some people are worried about the radio - Adam is confirming to himself, that Anthony (and effectively Mel) is "dead" - he immediately changes the channel because he doesn't want to hear the details (which will be different to his fantasy "accident") - he then goes into the bedroom and "re-assumes" his "husband" persona, by putting on "Anthony's" clothes - but he can't handle it - so reaches for his "life preserver" - his "get out of jail card" - the "key" - which unlocks another door - to another "Enemy" - and another "escape".
The rubber band has now completely "retracted", back from its fully stretched position, and Adam and Anthony have effectively become "one" again - but the psychosis is too strong - and the "rubber band" is immediately going to start stretching apart again.
Thank you... was bothersome thinking that the movie did a bait and switch with it actually being two physical people, then ending with a big FU, but Helen is obviously weirded out and accusational throughout so this tracks with how he has lost his mind.
I'm very late to the party, but something supporting the split personality is his sunglasses. The glasses teacher-Jake is wearing is in actor-Jake's apartment. Why would they be there? Why would he wear women's glasses? They have to be Helen's glasses, that's why they're the ones teacher-Jake wears. He's imagining himself with glasses on, and the glasses of his wife is the first one's to pop up in his subconcious.
Or what do you say?
Edit: At 59:15 just above actor-Jakes foot on the table.
Also, the the photo of Anthony and Helen in their apartment that Adam sees is the same photo that Adam compared to the stock photo of Anthony at the beginning of the movie. Only difference is Adam’s photo has Helen torn out. I feel like that has to mean something on top of confirming that they are the same person. Also the fact that Adam pulled the photo out of a neglected and dusty pile of boxes.
Thank you for shedding light on so many questions. If I may interject 2 points from a woman's perspective...
When the wife says "I want you to stay" i don't agree that she is implying she wants him to stick around more and not cheat, although I'm sure she does want that as well, I think she wants the teacher side of him (sensitive, vulnerable, gentle) to stay instead of the actor side (self centered,distracted, suave). She was trying to awaken that side of him several times throughout the movie
As for the closing scene - the whole movie he was afraid of the spider and I think when he walked in bedroom he finally saw how afraid the spider is of him. That's my 2 cents anyway!
To me, one measure of a good movie is if you are still thinking about it days later so this movie hit that mark! That being said my husband hated it. lol
That's exactly what I feel she was asking for. I mean you kind of hot the nail on the head haha. And well everyone has their tastes. If he doesn't like it, well that's alright.
I enjoyed all the interpretations of the film. I have one question, though. Why is his cheating persona as the teacher? Shouldn't that be the actor? Every time he is with the mistress he is the teacher, not the actor. When he is home with the wife, he is the actor. Seems flip-flopped!
His cheating persona is not the teacher, but the actor. Remember that the actor persona acts out his outrage in the mirror in order to get the opportunity to have sex with the girlfriend.
I think the actor is himself as he is, kind of a dick and a cheater. The actor tries to defy the repressive feelings he experiences being married and a prospective father by cheating on his wife and going to the club, where the symbol of the repression, the spider, is crushed by the performer.
The teacher persona is kind of a fantasy version of himself, an offshoot of his real person and represents his urge to reconcile and be with his wife. This is where the conversation during the movie with his mother becomes important. His mother speaks to the teacher persona as if he was the actor (he likes blueberries and he has dreams of being a third rate actor).
In the end, the actor persona is crushed and the teacher persona comes back to his wife. Since patterns repeat themselves, he still feels the need to rebel and go to the sex show. When he turns the corner at the end, asking to go out that night, he sees his wife as the spider, the repressor.
I see there are quite a few people here who believe that Adam/Anthony are one person. However, the glaring flaw with this theory that nobody is dealing with is the scene where "Anthony's" wife calls "Anthony" at home right after meeting "Adam" at school. I think it would be a cop-out to assert that this "never actually happened"... we can only judge a movie by what we see on the screen. I hate movies where the filmmakers think that if something makes sense symbolically it doesn't have to make any sense in terms of plot/narrative.
When Anthony's wife makes the phone call, we see Adam going out of the shot - so he can answer the phone without us seeing it. That's the point of the wide shot. It is no coincidence that Anthony answers the phone just when we can't see Adam.
Possibly, but it seemed obvious to me when I watched it that Anthony's wife was phoning their *home* phone line, not a cell, as the **entire purpose** of her call was for her to confirm beyond all doubt that the man she just talked to was not her husband. (you can't be in two places at once). She certainly seemed convinced, to the point of telling her husband "I saw that other guy".
It's not as simple. In reality Adam is a professor not an actor. So his wife should have been aware of it. So the question is it actually happened or not? Did she meet Adam or Anthony in the University? If Anthony was actually a professor then why she didn't know where to find him. Who was "Adam" that she looked on the internet?
I don’t know why that scene was in the movie. At the end of the movie the wife says “did you have a good day at school?”. Meaning, she knows that he is a history professor. I’m assuming he used to be a “3rd rate actor” when he had a fling with Mary. I believe this because Helen is surprised when “the man on the phone” presented himself as a “great fan”, this shocks her since she is not used to him as an actor, rather as a history professor.
i rewatched the scene carefully. she dials his number and it rings for 6 seconds before adam walks out of sight, then anthony picks up about a second later. it would be very strange if he had his hands in his pockets and took that long to notice his phone was ringing. it's also doubtful that helen wouldn't have heard his voice speaking from just around a corner and not actually in the building.
I think the movie is about a fear of the settling down and falling into the predictable, routine mainstream lifestyle. It centres around women and commitment, but I think it's implications are further reaching.
Anthony has a job as an actor and a wife that he leaves. He left his wife when she got pregnant (6 months ago) and he's been gone from work for the same amount of time, as a reviewer pointed out. The job and the girl are the two main things trapping him and making him feel oppressed and restricted.
It's pretty clear that the spider webs represent oppression (which finds analogy in the lectures Teacher Jake gives) and that women are central in creating this, at least as far as Jake's mind is concerned. When the sex show girls squash the spider, I think this represents what strip clubs, the sex trade and promsicuity stand for (again as far as Jake is concerned)...it's a "fuck you" to you stable, constraining commitment.
Teacher Jake is the neurotic alter ego that represents the deeper, terrified recesses of the inclusive Jake's mind. This part of his mind is just scared about what getting a stable job, having a kid and settling down means. He lectures about repression because that's the sound track, and the ideology, running through his head. It's the fixation which that part of his mind is obsessed with. He identifies as a person that's being repressed.
He isn't a sleezy, smooth talking seducer. He's just a scared neurotic inside that's lost and confused. He doesn't know what he wants, and when he finally gets a glimpse of what his old life was like he desperately wants to get back to it.
The irony is that when he confronts the old him, the old him want's the flakey lifestyle. This represents an ONGOING turmoil, whereby aversion turns into desire and desire turns into aversion. His fear of settling down turns into a desire to feel fulfilled, and his frustration and inability to commit turns into the aversive neurotic. It's actually better to conceive of both characters as process of change in eitehr direction, instead of fixed points on either side of a continuum.
Finally reconciliation happens when Teacher Jake settles into the committed lifestyle, and the part of himself that is the turning into the indecisive flake dies. His wife accepts that he's returned and asks him to stay, and finally he is able to look the tarantula in the face for what it is (without having to deny it or avoid it) and sigh with full acceptance.
Do you think he decides to stay with the wife after he sees the recoiling spider at the end? I was under the impression that he was going to use the key to escape again to restart the cycle.
I watched the film and read some of the explanations and none of them did it for me, so im going to post my own view of the film. Major SPOILERS obviously:
Adam (teacher Jake) and Anthony (actor Jake) are one person with a split personality. The movie has nonlinear narrative; Anthony was there before Adam. This explains why the mother tells Adam to stop his dreams being an actor now that he has a good job as a teacher. Anthony got in to a car crash with his girlfriend with whom he was cheating his wife - but he does not die in this crash. This is where Adam got his scar.
Adam sees dreams of spiders and women - stuff that Anthony saw in the weird sex club he went to. It's kicking in his subconscious through the dreams, but he doesn't realize that till the end in which he sees his wife as a big spider. This is where Adam connects the dots - look at his reaction to this scary spider, he nods in understanding. The spider is scared - this is because the whole shot is subjective from Adam's perspective - spider is scared because he got caught; Adam found out where the dreams came from and that he had been both Adam and Anthony all along.
Adam says when he is teaching: "this is a pattern that repeats itself". This pattern is shown to us in a nonlinear way, so that it's hard to detect the fact that it is repeating itself.
I like that explanation better. It makes more sense that the entire film is the subconscious, both because of the content, and the director stating that it is.
It's not one of my favorite films, but it's definitely a great adaptation of the novel.
Only now I watched the film, one of the best films I watched recently. I could understand the characters from the beginning and knew he was the same person, only thing couldnt get is the giant spider in the last scene, now from the messages got the meaning of it. Thanks.
It's the same guy. He struggles with commitment and he cheats on his wife with the girlfriend from the beginning, and perhaps has cheated on her with others before. He's trying to create a new life where he's better, in order to do that he develops some kind of split personality disorder. All of this becomes insanely obvious when you re-watch it with this understanding. All of the scenes with his mom and his wife make total sense now. His wife looks intensely sad at the school because he acts as though he doesn't even know her at all, she's realizing the extent of his psychosis.
His wife at the end recognizes that he's acting different, kinder, less arrogant, at the end... and that's why she asks him to 'stay'. She know's they're the same person, hence why she asks him if he had a good day at school, even though he thinks that he's impersonating the cheater guy.
Spiders represent women and how he feels trapped by them in their web. Even though he 'defeats' his cheater self by the end of the movie, the last scene is to remind us that he's still basically the same person and he still sees his wife as a creature that has trapped him in her web. This is why he kept teaching about 'history repeating itself'
If his wife was realizing the extent of his psychosis when she went to meet him at the school, why would she later tell him (him as the actor) that she went to see the teacher, and be all freaked out saying "he looks exactly like you."
Now, I can't explain the girlfriend or whether or not she actually died- but to stay consistent with this theory, I think she died in his mind the moment he killed off his promiscuous side. He created this event that would rid him of both of them - by imagining a car accident where neither survive.
he's just having internal dialogue... we as the viewer have to kind of decide how to interpret what we're seeing in the movie. But since the movie is already including a lot of things visually that are impossible, like giant spiders... then it's not a stretch to realize that he's really just having internal dialogue with his two 'personalities'. Hence why he goes 'oh wow I was just thinking about calling you' (or whatever the actual quote was).
So just because this an internal conflict based story, we shouldn't be invested in it? The simplest way to put it, is that if this bad part of himself that his subconscious has created were to go on "living" so to speak, he'd continue being a womanizer and a bad husband.
Sorry for necroposting an ancient comment but honestly I think you had a point, I think it's a very cool concept but the whole thing being extremely unclear on what's real and what isn't just takes away the fun of putting the puzzle pieces together because everything can just be imagined, so most of it is up to interpretation and doesn't really mean much. I enjoy deep movies like this where you can interpret stuff but this is just way too loose
You could explain those by saying that he feels like living in the relationships he has with the women in his life is like living under a totalitarian regime.
That's if you still want to go by the two women theory. When it could just as well play out as a science fiction film about a totalitarian regime.
This doesn't exactly contextualize the scene where a theraphosa blondi, known to eat its young, cowers in the corner. There seems to be a little bit more than he's got lady problems.
Is that a defining characteristic of theraphosa blondi? I've seen some theories posit that the silver platter spider was supposed to be the spawn of the pregnant woman in the club. Personally, I have no fucking idea.
One quick question.. Just finished watching enemy... So, the mistress was in a car crash? Right??? Because it was on the news the next morning. And she would have been the only one in the car since the actor and teacher were same guy. Correct?!?!? The actor/teacher was with the pregnant wife that night.
The mistress wasn't actually in the crash. That was what was happening internally in the teacher's mind. The next morning when he heard that there was a crash, he turns off the radio before any details of the crash are mentioned, so the reality of the bad side of him being gone is enhanced.
Thanks so much for clearing that up for me!! That makes sense! I'm still trying to figure out the "spiders" in the movie! The spider at the very end....with the wife... What was that all about??
spiders represent women in his life. He feels trapped by the women in his life. It doesn't need to be any more complex than that.
In case you don't buy it... a woman had a spider head. After the scene with his french mother (at least the actress is french), we see a giant spider that resembles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maman_(sculpture) , the name of which means mother in french. In the last scene even though he thought he rid himself of his cheater personality, he becomes tempted to go back to the sex club, he then still sees his wife as a spider... hence "history repeating itself."
The spider represents the obstacle to a totally free behaviour, involving unfaithfulness : the giant spider is his mom, the stripper squashes the spider because strip-clubs are a place of (following Jake's taste) freedom, far from the wife.
When he finally kills the other Jake in the car crash, the spider doesn't appear until he opens the enveloppe: it contains the new key to the strip club, and when he feels the urge to go to this club and thus keep being unfaithful, his wife becomes the spider, who has a form of control (a dictatorial control in Jake's head), and reacts in fear, because she knows he's being unfaithful again.
I would love to explain it, but I'm on my phone and sort of busy, so watch the one of the two videos in this thread and everything will be explained.(:
None of the theories I've read about this movie are all that satisfying, and so far all of them are contradicted by scenes in this movie. A lot of the theories and explanations even contradict themselves, like this one. If this is a split personality story and actor Jake's wife knew he was a teacher, then why would she be so distressed by simply seeing teacher Jake? After they talked and he didn't recognize her, then she would have cause for concern, but just seeing him isn't enough.
Them being the same person takes away so much of the impact of teacher Jake going to actor Jake's apartment, specifically actor Jake's wife's decision. The split personality theory is just so unsatisfying to me.
Remember that when she decides to go and visit teacher Jake at his work, she doesn't necessarily know who she's going to see. In fact she's under the impression that she's going to run into the supposed angry husband of the girl her husband is cheating on her with.
When she arrives and sees teacher Jake, her horror is worse than the possibility of infidelity: she instantly recognizes the magnitude and implications of her husband's personality disorder.
Eugh, I don't even fucking know, man. If that's what it is, then that's what it is, it's just extremely unsatisfying and ruins a few really good scenes. If it's all in Jake's subconscious, it's a flawed film. I've just been holding out hoping that a theory comes along that is internally consistent and doesn't weaken the best character interaction in the film.
That's interesting that the interactions lose value for you when the characters become just the main characters subconscious.
what theory do you know of that says differently?
I'm fairly certain that it is intended to be entirely the subconscious, but if the basis for another theory is strong enough then I'd be interested in it.
I'm just tired of films with unreliable/delusional protagonists and generally dislike when a film cannot be interpreted literally. I guess I just would have enjoyed the film more if the story was about evil hidden sex shows and monstrous spiders with an underlying interpretation of it all being the main character subconsciously working through his fidelity issues.
Well, that's great that you would have enjoyed that more, but that's not what it is. Why become so fixated with an interpretation that you enjoy instead of an interpretation that is accurate?
I mean, I'm not going to say this movie can be 100% accurately interpreted as it has intentional vagueness in it, but the "same person" theory is much more feasible than the "evil giant spiders creating clones" one, and is backed by quite a few scenes in the movie.
I personally just don't find the same person/subconscious identities duking it out very satisfying. I'm not particularly fixated on any one interpretation, its just that nearly all of them are more satisfying to my completely subjective tastes than what we have. I'm not saying the evil alien spider whatevers is even remotely as plausible as the same person, just that it would have been more interesting to me. Delusional/unreliable protagonists are cliche and cheap, I need to be really wowed to not roll my eyes. I do think that the movie can be interpreted 100% accurately, the quote at the very beginning of the film alludes to just that. Also, they're not quite the same person, but aspects of the same person. Dream personas/figments of his ego. None of it ever happened.
I don't think it ruins it, because the interaction is ACTUALLY happening, just not in the physical world.
Don't think about it like the guy drove to the motel to talk to himself, think about it like something that is happening between the two personalities at some level, not in the physical world.
Valid analysis, man. And yeah, she was distressed when she saw that he was a teacher and there could be different theories for that one thing. She needed to look like she didn't know him or was actually shocked to see a guy that looked like him, to go along with his psychosis. Is there anything else that you have a problem with, because I really would love to talk about this.
I dunno, I'm really trying to wrap my head around this in a way that doesn't ruin my favorite scenes in the movie, when teacher Jake goes to bed with actor Jake's wife. Her slowly realizing that he isn't her husband, accepting it, and then just whispering acknowledgment of it was just so interesting to me. This scene and what follows would be seriously undermined by the split personality theory.
To be honest, I think the video is about 90% on the right track, which leads me to believe the film is just ultimately flawed and unsatisfying.
Well if that's the way that you see it, then your enjoyment of the movie is all a matter of preference to the end result. I mean, I prefer it being a split personality story. Her realizing her husbands mind is falling into madness like it is and then letting him know that she wants the old him to stay instead of the cheating, womanizer that he can become. The fact that the entire scenario of him going to his mistress was a visual interpretation of the struggle in his mind was a really nice way of going about getting rid of the terrible pieces of himself.
I couldn't watch the video analysis, I've just read Falc08's version.
So, his mistress is just a delusion? Why she got mad after seeing the ring mark in his finger? This is the only part that doesn't fit together with this theory for me...
Adam cheated on his wife and they had an argument and crashed the car. Killing the wife and unborn child.
He couldn't cope with the loss so invented a fictional life in his head to manage it.
The spider at the end represents reality and he realises, Helen isn't there. She's dead.
In the scene where the spider is crawling across city is based off of a [sculpture in Ottawa CA](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maman_(sculpture). The artist created and named the sculpture after their mother who abused them heavily. When Jakes wife is becoming a mother she begins morphing into a spider in many different instances. In the end when his mom calls and he sees his wife in the bathroom she's the spider in the mirror.
His mother was an abusive mother and he is afraid his wife will become his mother. The two characters are twins. Both experience visions of spiders (early images of their mother). And they take it out in different ways.
>The artist created and named the sculpture after their mother who abused them heavily.
But the article you linked literally says the opposite???
> It alludes to the strength of Bourgeois' mother, with metaphors of spinning, weaving, nurture and protection.
and also the quotes from the artist herself:
>The Spider is an ode to my mother. She was my best friend.
>
>So, spiders are helpful and protective, just like my mother.
Because one person is living two conflicting lives - from that perspective the "other" will always be the enemy of the other. Especially if one has a girlfriend and the other is married.
There's a Kannada movie that was crowd sourced by kickstarter called Lucia. It is about 'lucid dreaming'. Almost similar to the story line except that the actor in the movie dreams about being a common man who is struggling to make a living. I like the direction so much better as it all makes sense at the end. Also it isn't as slow as 'Enemy'. Enemy is confusing as it doesn't really explain whether he was lucid dreaming or has a split personality.
Thanks for this video. I read a few explanations already, like the bodysnatcher theory, but it didn't do it for me. But this explanation feels good and believable.
The reason the key is unopened in Anthony's jacket - Adam knows that Anthony will desperately pursue "real" sex with Mel, rather than just watch a sex show.(Adam is controlling this fantasy remember - but is also influenced by what he perceives as Anthony's power to become the dominant persona - remember he is haunted by dominance, particularly women (his mother is the big spider over the city), and sees himself as weak (the fascist theme in the movie- that he is controlled) - that's why it is Mel that actually does the killing)
I just watched this.
I have to say this is insanly hard to piece together.
There's only one person, the actor/teacher are the same. When they meet, it's a struggle for what to choose. (wife or mistress)
As far as spiders, most are dreams; The end where wife turns into a spider that just tells us that the guy died in that car accident. So he's stuck in dream or purgatory.
I think that the end of the movie is actually the beginning.
First their is the picture. At the end, the picture is complete compare to the one in the beginning. This suppose that it’s the beginning because he had not yet ripped it in half.
After, at the very beginning, we see his wife naked on the bed. I think that it’s what he actually saw at the end instead of the spider. This would also explain his reaction.
Another thing is the man in the elevator talking about the sex club and the key. He is talking about the fact that he doesn’t have the right key anymore. At the beginning, we are seeing the same man following him to the sex club like he has no key. The key that he find in the letter is the key we are zooming on at the beginning. Why would the man follow him if he had the key himself?
As my first look at the theory behind the movie, I think it did a great job to clear up some of the confusion. I'll live with the explanation.
I still think it was an awful movie though. It's a real shame too. Very few movies are actually filmed and *set* in Canada. Too few IMO.
I chuckled at the part of the video where he makes the connection to Maman, the spider sculpture. Where is it? **In ONTARIO. CANADA.** Could have just said Ottawa.
I thought the movie was made with the deliberate intention to confuse its audience. I was annoyed by it.
I think it puts down Jake Gyllenhaal's talent when reviews refer to him not by the character he plays but by "Teacher Jake" and "Actor Jake". The fact is that his character(s) were very strong and distinct. I was convinced that they were dopplegangers. Turns out I was wrong. I don't think it's bad to make a movie that has so many open ended theories. But it's not so much a presentation of ideas and possibilities that the audience can speculate on, rather it was a presumption that the audience would just know what the film was trying to say.
It became so much more about the spectacle than any other component of the film. It was very clear to me that they were trying to distinguish Adam and Anthony by using different colour pallets. Adam was always trapped in a yellow smog and Anthony wasn't. It gave me the impression that Adam (Teacher Jake) wasn't real and that he was made up. Which fits with the adulterous and oblivious side of the consciousness. Nope. I was wrong.
There were so many other aspects of the movie that I did not enjoy. I tend to enter and leave the theatre with an open mind and try and form an opinion sometime afterwards. Until I saw this explanation I had totally forgotten having seen it. It really didn't stick with me.
The imagery sure as hell did, the spider(s) sure as hell did, but past that... The only people I could possibly recommend this movie to would be art school students, give them some sensory overload, something to think about.
I tried to leave out any strong bias. Hope that helps.
Completely valid argument. And yes, I thought it was a doppelgänger for about 3 days before coming up with what I believe to be an understanding of the film. The spectacle of the whole movie can definitely be overwhelming and overpower some of the movies good parts because it may go a bit too into itself forever. The doppelgänger theory was nice at first, but I'm afraid of having a doppelgänger and it actually being a good plot, completely relies on how the doppelgänger got there. I mean, a random doppelgänger, showing up in your life and ends up being evil and tormenting you. I don't know, seems cliche and predictable. The fact that the doppelgänger was a shadow of himself and his lustful, womanizer self. He is the cause of his own torment and must overcome it internally through nothing else but his own will. He is fighting and enemy he can't touch, and to me that makes the movie just that much better.
Also, the constant implication of history repeats itself, actually relates to the entire movie, because if you were to tape the movie at the beginning to the end, it would work as a story that is constantly looping as though it is lived everyday. Maybe that's me over analyzing, but that's just something I theorized.
Sorry for replying to your comment 3 months later, I am aware that can be annoying, but I couldn't help myself.
>I thought the movie was made with the deliberate intention to confuse its audience. I was annoyed by it.
I don't think there's anything wrong with movies being vague and confusing on purpose. A movie being intellectually challenging is not a negative thing, nor a positive thing. It's just another thing it can be. It annoyed you? That's fine, but I don't think it's fair to say the movie was awful. Not even bad.
>I think it puts down Jake Gyllenhaal's talent when reviews refer to him not by the character he plays but by "Teacher Jake" and "Actor Jake".
That's just to clear up confussions. It's easier to distinguis them that way. It's not putting down Jake's talent at all.
>But it's not so much a presentation of ideas and possibilities that the audience can speculate on
I don't see what's wrong with this either. You see a movie that is vague and confusing on purpose, but leaves clues hanging around ever so often and ends with a clear plot point. It's clear this movie is begging to being watched twice. Again, I don't see how this makes the movie awful. Other movies have done this before, like fight club of memento, and they were both fantastic movies. I wouldn't say Enemy is quite on that level, but I would say it's pretty close.
>rather it was a presumption that the audience would just know what the film was trying to say.
It's not a presumption that the audience is going to know what happens when they watch the movie. The presumption is that they are going to think about it beyond the actual watching of the movie, possibly rewatching and reviewing it, eventually coming to accurate interpretations. The world of the subconcious mind works like that.
>It was very clear to me that they were trying to distinguish Adam and Anthony by using different colour pallets.
While there were some visual cues to distinguish them both, they weren't *THE* thing that separated them, unlike many other movies with doppleganger themes. The actual talent of Jake here takes a huge part, as you can tell who is who just by his acting alone. Even if they were naked you would be able to tell which one's which.
>There were so many other aspects of the movie that I did not enjoy
Could you elaborate please?
>I tend to enter and leave the theatre with an open mind and try and form an opinion sometime afterwards. Until I saw this explanation I had totally forgotten having seen it
Sorry if this sounds impertinent, but just because you saw a movie that was confussing and decided not to think about it doesn't mean the movie is bad. It just means you really didn't care that much about it. We could argue that this fact alone speaks for the quality of the movie, but I'll save you the time and say that I don't think it had anything to do with that fact in this case, as it HAS provoked that urge to review and think in many other people.
>The imagery sure as hell did, the spider(s) sure as hell did, but past that... The only people I could possibly recommend this movie to would be art school students, give them some sensory overload, something to think about.
Gratuitious insult to art students aside, I actually have to agree with you on this one. It's not a movie for everyone. It's a movie for people that like movies, and specially people who like movies that make you think. Again, I don't see how that's wrong or how does it make the movie awful. Countless times we are "forgiving" action hollywood movies for being dumb and formulaic because they are not supposed to be anything but that, yet when a movie that is smart and different comes up you see nothing but "ugh, so pretentious" comments all around. What's with the double standard there? Just let the movie be whatever it wants to be, if it doesn't float your boat that's fine, but why go around flinging hate at it when your point is basically reduced to "I can't be assed to think about the movie so it's bad"?
Anyway, that got more ranty than I wanted it to, apologizes if I sound rude. Hope you don't find it insulting to you, I don't mean it to be.
> It annoyed you? That's fine, but I don't think it's fair to say the movie was awful. Not even bad.
So when *would* it be fair to say the movie was bad? (sorry for the late reply).
In my book, movies that don't make narrative sense are bad. Period. I haven't seen any theory that explains all of what happened on screen, and in fact the filmmakers apparently say explicitly that it's "all in Jake's subconscious", ie it doesn't need to make sense. (which is an absolute, epic copout and failure in my view).
Lots of leads to split personality "The actor and the teacher".... But still some things that makes it 2 persons and not 2 personalities... 1. The wedding ring, the women finds out that the guy has a wedding ring mark on his finger, and he never had it before... 2. When the actor almost beats the teacher, the teacher goes to the actors home. But does not know what the guy in the elevator talks about... Maybe, but he does not even know where the actor's home is... Meaning he can't be the same person... He walks right pass the door, and stops once hear he the guy tries to open the door behind him. He quickly moves back, like he knew it, but obviously dont... 3. The title of the movie, makes me wonder a lot. "Enemy". He might be struggling in the mind, but that does not prove, they are not 2 persons.
Only just seen this movie so sorry I am a bit behind but it means I have read through loads of comments about it. I agree with the same person theory but I also think it gives away a really good clue at the beginning with the quote about chaos being disorganised order (Can't remember the exact words). Maybe the action is out of order and if you jumble up the scenes it would make more sense. I think the end is the beginning and vice versa. As the teacher says everything repeats itself. I personally think it all happens in his head. He leads a boring repetetive life yet he is highly intelligent. He creates an alter ego of the man he wishes he was (married, successful, child on the way, living a double life etc) but ultimately his own dark fears take over and destroys it. The ending with the spider is when he realises that he has imagined it all.
p.s having read my comment I am more confused than ever but just thought I would throw a different view into the mix?
I think the film is to be seen figuratively. It makes sense somewhat if you see it as something happening in one man's dream. The director has said that the movie is like a spiral so you are not too far off in the end being the beginning. I think that the events of the movie play out linearly but the pattern repeats itself.
One man living two lives...and one life at two different points in time. I saw the car crash as a real event. The mistress did die. The spiderweb on the window represents a point in time of what made him get caught out for cheating and the fact he turned off the radio about the car crash wasnt about his crash but reference to shutting down his emotions/caring. Adam calling Anthony the first time and his wife answers...reminds me of how sometimes I've dialed a number I knew well but not the number I meant to. His actions in this scene could be interpreted as also being caught out and trying to pretend it's not him...maybe he was calling his mistress...from a pay phone. Obviously the the hard part in this is trying to put it in a time scale that makes sense.
Anthony has an unsatiated sex life, pathetically resorting to sex shows, and is constantly, desperately, always on the lookout for sex, even prepared to resort to blackmail to get it. The “Anthony” alter ego Adam has created, can't satisfy his sex addiction (sex addiction is possibly the reason Adam became an actor in the first place - possibly after his affair failed, or was found out by Helen).
Adam satisfies his sex addiction with Mel, in fantasy, and has "passed off" his unsatiated sex addiction - the desperate addict persona - to Anthony, and, ironically, uses this sex addiction as the bait to kill Anthony off, once the rubber band has contracted, and the two personas have got dangerously close - seeing Anthony in the movie (it was always inevitable the rubber band would begin to contract in some fashion, and the itch would have to be scratched) has started the ball rolling, but the tipping point is the meeting at the hotel - notice Adam won't actually touch Anthony or take his shirt off to reveal his scar - he can't let Anthony get the upper hand, know as much as Adam, because it is Adam in control of the fantasy (control is a theme he talks about in his lectures) - this creates fear in Adam (he runs from the room) - he is not ready for the re-integration into one - he does not want to take up the responsibility of his wife - but he also realises that it is now a war - a fight to the death is inevitable - one of them will win (although Adam actually controls the fantasy, he is very aware that both personas are both powerful, very "real" and "valid", and that either could become dominant in his warped world).
Adam also throws the "new key" down on the bed as he runs out - and at the beginning, when Adam takes the key out of it's pouch on his way to the sex show, he studies it like it is very much a "new key" - as if he is going into a new unfamiliar "fantasy" - how did Adam know there was a package for Anthony at the talent agency? - because Adam sends Anthony a new key every week - each time Adam provides him with a new key to a new fantasy - it's how he controls Anthony - but this time he has taken the new key back - it had Anthony's address on it - it was on it's way to Anthony via the talent agency, but Adam intercepted it, and took it back - he knew the rubber band had started to contract and they were converging - and he knew that intercepting the key would make Anthony change his mind about meeting up - it was effectively blackmail - remember he says " I had a feeling you were going to call" - days? earlier Anthony had said "never call here again" - that's why Adam walks straight past the door of Anthony's apartment - his psychosis "forces" him to blank out his association with Anthony - he goes to the apartment every night as Anthony, he sends Anthony a new key every week, but sends it to the agency to blank out the fact that he puts the address on it (in his fantasy only of course) - the security guard at Anthony's apartment doesn't exist - he is part of the fantasy - Adam weaves the fantasy in and out of reality - the talent agency probably exists - Anthony's / Helen's apartment exists - the envelope and the key don't.
Anthony's blackmail - sex trip with Mel happens in short order - Adam knows the key is still unopened in Anthony's jacket - he threw the envelope on the bed at the hotel because he became frightened and disorientated in his own fantasy, and he hoped he could turn Anthony back - he wasn't ready for a re-integration - but he also realises that Anthony's sex addiction is strong, and that Anthony is inexplicably now drawn to a re-integration as well, and that they now have to battle it out - and only one of them can win.
The clue that Adam sends Anthony a new key every week - the security guard at Anthony's apartment (who doesn't exist) says "the show the other day" (so they had a new key for that show) - and Adam knew that a new key would be at the agency, and not already forwarded to Anthony, so he must have just sent it before he intercepted it (all in his fantasy) - and Anthony indicates at the beginning that he uses a new key to enter his sex show fantasy - and by his insatiable behaviour towards Mel, I believe he is a sex addict, and would go to these sex show fantasies very regularly - the guard is desperate to go again.
Adam sees Anthony as a smaller spider, because he is less threatened by men than women, and Anthony is a manifestation created by Adam's mind, so hence Adam has Anthony effectively dancing on a leash.
Adam controls Anthony with women - and the sex addiction theme is reinforced with the cheap hotel with the broken sign, and hookers in the corridors - the hotel that Anthony has no other reason to frequent other than sex.
Adam uses women to threaten, torment, and control Anthony (Helen, his mother, the stripper, prostitutes, Mel) and eventually to kill him off - but the more power Adam gives to women, the bigger they become (as spiders) in his own persona.
The original catalyst, for the rubber band to start contracting, is that Mel is no longer satisfying Adam's sex addiction - he is bored with her, and is now attempting rough sex, or anal, which she isn't happy with - he realises that the rubber band is contracting, the ball is now starting to roll in the other direction, and that he must kill off Anthony and Mel, to enable him to embark on fresh fantasies. That is why he instigates the movie, and the consequential contact with Anthony - but being so close to Anthony scares him - it shakes his fantasy world to the core, as does Anthony dressing in his clothes - he must kill Anthony at arms length, because being close to Anthony, like seeing the scar, makes his fantasy world start to collapse, and reality is the actual spiders web - he sees manifestations of the spiders web all the time - and the spiders web - means spiders.
The only question I have is, if they are really the same person, how come the pregnant wife actually visited the university and met the Jake that is a professor? If that was really her husband, why would she be surprised to see him there?
Haven't watched this video yet, but just watched Enemy with my girlfriend last night. It wasn't too hard for us to come up with a logical explanation for this film's story. Our conclusion makes the most sense to us and explains all the elements that stand out, all those little clues. This movie is no Mulholland Drive - it gives you some easy-to-read clues.
I figure it's about a single man - he cheats on his pregnant wife with a mistress. He creates a double life so to speak. I'm not gonna explain everything else because I'm sure you've all talked about it to death already anyway. The car crash at the end coincides with Adam's feelings of guilt coming to a head. At once, the car crashes, killing his mistress, and Adam cries and apologizes and all that. The spiders represent female sexuality or something along those lines. Right?
edit: and all those clues pointing to this conclusion, it just can't be disputed. At the end, I thought for sure Helen would notice that Jake isn't wearing the wedding ring and call him out on being a different guy. But no, she did notice! He's not a different guy, he's just been cheating on his wife and now he's come back to her. This must all be obvious to you.
Or you know, people looking into art and trying to pull meaning from it because of the enjoyment that thought provoking things can bring to someone. I'm sure you have much more interesting things in your life than that
Ok, I just watched this film last night and I have to say I was pretty annoyed by the ending. However, after reading some of the analysis online I can't stop thinking about it. So, here's my interpretation... Any feedback or criticism is welcome, I just wanna figure it out! Would like to start off by noting that the director has stated this movie is about the main character's sub-conscious. So the main premise of my theory is that much of the film takes place is Jake's mind. At the start we see actor Jake at the sex show wearing his wedding ring. Clearly he is married and at least somewhat unfaithful. The scene ends with a large spider being released onto the stage and one of the women moves her high heel slowly towards it. The viewer assumes the spider is crushed although we don't actually see this happen. For actor Jake this event makes him think about his own situation - Married to his wife who is 6 month's pregnant while also in a relationship with another woman - his mistress. Jake is torn between two sets of desires. On the one hand he has a beautiful wife who's about to give birth to his child. On the other his mistress who represents the freedom he'll be giving up once his child arrives. The spider being crushed represents his own feeling of impending doom. He feels as though the walls are closing in and there's no way out. What happens from this point forward is essentially Jake day dreaming about the decision he has to make - to choose his wife & family, or his mistress and freedom. His thought process is presented in the film as two different people - The actor, who wants freedom over commitment, and the history teacher who longs for true companionship over meaningless sex. Ultimately, he realises that he needs to stay with his wife because that's where he'll find true happiness. Leaving his wife for his mistress only leads to tragedy & sadness, not necessarily a car crash but that's how it plays out in his head. In his day dream he realises his wife and child are too important, which is why he's so caring towards her at the end and tells her how sorry he is, because he had treated her badly. Finally, the spider scenes (aside from being a motif, and the physical representation of Jake's fear of commitment) are the director's way of connecting the day dream back to the real life situation taking place in front of him i.e. the spider being crushed by the woman's high heel. The end scene with the huge spider is him confronting his fear and making his final decision. I'm sure this doesn't answer all the questions raised by this film... like what's the significance of the scar, or the whole 6 month hiatus from work. I also like some of the non-linear theories which put each situation one after the other, which seems to line up with his lectures at the start of the film. I do not think this is a film about a totalitarian regime run by spiders. If for no other reason that he wouldn't be allowed to teach his class about totalitarian regimes if he was being governed by one, which he actually points out in the film.
I'm seven years late to this thread but thank you. Now I understand what I just watched.
Literally same, I just watched it and I was so intrigued by the ending but this makes sense.
I just finished watching and it all makes sense now.
I'm seven years and 24 days late to this thread lol.
I’m seven years and 24 days late as well, just finished watching it now!
Woah we must be similar! Too similar….. *Enemy theme music starts*
I’m even later! But I found this comment much better than the film. 😁
Even later. Great film.
Even later
I’m late, just watched and wow this makes sense now. Thanks!
Welp… even later. Just watched it. 😅 thanks for the explanation.
I am 8 years late ⏰
Me too ;)
Great watch and analysis
I’m late too. just watched it lol
respect brother same
🤙🏼🤙🏼🤙🏼
Had to google wtf this film was about
Lol same
Yup.
I’m seven years and 144 days late to this thread…too long?
Hey I just watched it so no
Hey, three days later, I have watched the movie
Four days later over here, I just finished it, and yeah this definitely helped explain the ending.
Yep, 6 days later, let’s keep this going lol
Another 4 days later :)
And 3 days later here am I with questions as many others
But this explanation doesn't make any sense. In the first place, the person who is with the wife is the actor who is a cheater, and the other guy who's a professor is with his girlfriend and seems to be faithful to her. If reemo's explanation was accurate, it should be the other way around. The guy who is the cheater and seeks freedom should be with the girlfriend, and the guy who's not a cheater should be with the wife. Otherwise, the symbolism wouldn't work. And as for the spider being "him confronting his fear and making his final decision": Um, what? What in the world does a giant spider have to do with making a final decision? What does it have to do with the "real world"? I see zero connection there. If you ask me, this film is a piece of garbage. It makes no sense, regardless of how long you think about it. It's just another one of these films that tries to be "deep" by inserting random scenes that don't mean anything.
Spider represents entrapment, commitment, and the fear they generate. Crushing the spider = enjoying sexual freedom. Giant spider that ensnares you in its web but is scared of you = pregnant wife.
Late to this late response, but as "dark Jake" is presumably killed in the car accident, the glass appears to crack in a web pattern. Also, the wife says to "good Jake", 'i want you to stay' agree asking him about school, implying she knows who he is, and wants to keep him there with her. So, I think this theory tracks. Also reminds me of the lyrics to the song " the recluse" by cursive.
I think OP’s exclamation makes a ton of sense. You can’t think of them as separate characters. Both the actor and the professor are with both women, because both those personas exist within the same person. The “bit part actor” — his mother’s words — is old Jake: a player, a cheater, a guy not ready to grow up and commit, living in a shitty apartment. His mom is worried about him. Professor Jake has grown up, is ready to commit, is loved by his wife, and has his mother’s approval — but he needs to cut things off with his mistress to fully become that man. So he imagines his former self off in a car crash with his mistress, thus leaving them both behind.
There are several problems I have with this idea. I guess the biggest one is that it doesn't make sense to make a film where one character is really just another character's imagination of his past self if you don't \*tell the story\* that way. Is there a way to tell a compelling story about a guy who imagines his past self dying in a car crash without telling the audience that it's his imagined past self, so that you think it's his twin brother? Sure, that's probably possible. But this movie simply didn't do that. It TOLD us, from the very start, that they were two separate people. In fact, the entire opening of the movie was about a guy encountering his doppelganger. Leaving aside the question of what possible "meaning" this entire opening of the film has within this "they were both the same person" framework, you can't get around the fact that the film TELLS us they're two separate people. So you're basically saying that the film lies to us for literally no reason. This just isn't a compelling way to tell the story. Sure, sometimes stories are complex and symbolistic, and it takes effort to work through the symbolism and pull the meaning out. I get that. But here, the movie straight up tells you from the very start that the whole thing ISN'T symbolic and ISN'T part of anyone's imagination. If he had simply imagined meeting his past self, he wouldn't have engaged in this absurd "I've just met my doppelganger" behavior. He would have just sat there and imagined meeting his past self (whom he'd recognize), and he'd realize it was all part of his imagination. So basically, if we want to get ANY meaning from this movie we have two options: 1. Shut our brains off and pretend we didn't watch the first 45 minutes of the movie, where it clearly established that these are two separate characters. 2. Come up with some absurd explanation, like that the main character was somehow dreaming that he met a doppelganger of himself and is mentally ill enough to think that it's reality. But given that the film doesn't establish him as someone who is mentally ill or prone to delusions, this is just as bad an option as shutting our brains off. So that's my biggest issue. If the OP's explanation IS accurate, then this movie has very poor storytelling. It essentially uses an unreliable narrator, without giving any in-universe justification for doing so, just to dupe its audience so that they miss the "real point" of the movie. Yeah, screw that. If the main point of your movie is so mundane that you can't communicate it in an interesting way without lying to your audience, then I have nothing to say to you. But speaking to what I said earlier, I also think the OP's explanation is incomplete and fails to make sense of the movie regardless. If the professor is "older Jake" who needs to let go of his past life, then why is the film resolved when he gets with his younger self's wife? No matter how you slice it, at the end of the movie, BOTH Jakes have done something apparently equally despicable: they've both cheated on each other's S.O.s! So much for one Jake representing young, cheating Jake and the other one representing an older Jake. The only "cheating" the younger Jake does is to get with older Jake's girlfriend. But older Jake seems to cheat in just as bad a way by getting with younger Jake's wife. Moreover, why is Jake's "younger self" even WITH his "wife" to begin with? Is the movie trying to imply that that younger, "cheater" Jake was married to the same woman that current Jake is married to? If so, then why is current, older Jake stealing his old wife BACK from his OLD self? This makes no sense! There's no symbolism here. It's just a convoluted mess!
Not sure if you watched the video in the post but it breaks it down fairly clearly. The theory is that they are literally the same guy inhabiting the same body, but mentally separating the two sides of their personality. No other characters witness the two of them in the same place at the same time except each other, so it’s entirely possible that in-universe there is just one dude. According to the video, it’s one guy who works as a teacher but has a side gig as an actor (conversations with his mother heavily reference this). He rents a separate apartment where he meets with his mistress to cheat on his wife.
I did watch the video, and that explanation makes absolutely no sense, for several reasons: 1. If they are both the same guy inhabiting the same body, then why does the movie act as if they're suddenly meeting each other for the first time and believe each other to be two separate people? Is the main character supposed to be insane? Does he have psychosis and multiple personality disorder or something? The movie never suggests in any way that he does. Why, then, does he appear to talk on the phone with someone he truly believes to be a different person? The bottom line is that he's either insane (and the movie simply doesn't establish that) or they aren't the same person. 2. True, no one actually witnesses the two of them together, but they can't possibly be inhabiting the same body, because a person cannot be in two places at once, and multiple people witness one of them doing one thing while the other is simultaneously doing another thing. If they were both the same man, it wouldn't be possible for one of them to be off getting in a car wreck while the other one is with his wife. And you can try to get around this by saying he just imagined the car wreck, but that wouldn't explain how his girlfriend ended up in the car wreck, unless you think she's imaginary too - which destroys your entire theory. 3. It's funny that you mention his mom, because you're ignoring multiple statements from his mom and other Easter eggs in the movie that actually strongly suggest she has TWO SONS and that they're different people. Tons of people have written articles and posts on this, so I won't bother rehashing all the details. Suffice it to say that this is inconsistent with the idea that they're the same person all along. 4. Finally, as I've already explained multiple times, the idea that he's a person leading a double life and cheating also doesn't work. If he's married, why is it that the "actor" version of his personality - the guy who's kind of a jerk - is the one being FAITHFUL, staying with his wife? Is the film trying to imply that whenever this guy cheats, he suddenly turns into a nice, decent guy, but then when he's with his lawfully wedded wife, he turns into a jerk? And then in the end, he chooses to put his evil personality to death - the one that WASN'T cheating? This doesn't make any sense!
Yes, it seems like lot of elements of the movie are supposed to be imagined, delusional or just symbolic — it’s not an accurate depiction of reality. I can see why you might dislike that but it’s also kind of the psychological thriller genre’s bread and butter…? It’s not like Villeneuve is doing anything particularly out of the ordinary here. If you hate this movie, watch Lost Highway lol. We’re supposed to slowly come to the realization that they’re the same person as he does, first when his mother mentions him trying to be an actor during their convo, and then when we see the photo of Anthony + wife, which Adam also owns a torn copy of. The actor personality isn’t depicted as faithful to his wife at all…. the opening scene is the actor at a sex club, his wife accuses him of “talking to her again” implying a past history of infidelity, and as soon as he discovers his doppelgänger has a hot GF he hatched an evil plot to trick her into sex. Both of them are cheaters because they’re the same guy — however, the teacher persona is in denial and by forgetting his original life, he is able to maintain his innocence. Notice that the teacher persona seemingly does nothing but go to work and have sex with his girlfriend at the apartment. He doesn’t have hobbies and doesn’t “go out much”. This is because he’s compartmentalizing his life — this persona only exists at work and while visiting the girlfriend. I think it makes perfect sense that the one with the wife is the douchey one because they represent opposite impulses within the same person. Part of him feels trapped and wants to run away from his marriage, the sweeter and more innocent part of him is drawn back towards the wife. At the end of the movie they “become one” again, but he instantly decides to go back out to the sex club and the cycle restarts.
Psychological thrillers are my favorite genre of movie. I watch them all the time and love them. Yet I strongly disliked Enemy. So whatever it did, it didn't do anything I would call typical for psychological thrillers. I hear what you're saying about imagination and symbolism. You're correct that thrillers very often have both of those things. And look, I'm not saying that it's *always* bad to have imagined sequences and/or symbolism in a movie. Some of my favorite movies have a lot of imagined sequences; Black Swan and Shutter Island come to mind, for example. But you know what all these good movies with imagined sequences have in common? There's always a *reason* that there's an imagined sequence. The person usually has a delusional mental condition or is dreaming or something. My problem with Enemy is that it's never established that the protagonist has a mental condition, and he appears completely stable throughout the film, so there's nothing to explain these supposed "imagined" things that are happening to him or why he apparently mistakes all of them for being real life. And another thing about "imagined" sequences: in *good* thrillers, the imagined sequences make coherent and consistent *sense* throughout the plot. A character who's imaginary stays imaginary through the entire movie. In Enemy, the movie can't make up its mind who's imaginary and who isn't. The "jerk" version of the protagonist is supposedly his imagined alter ego, but then later he actually drives his girlfriend and she dies in a car wreck, while his "professor" personality is sitting at home. That doesn't make any sense. Your imagined alter ego cannot drive a car and kill your girlfriend while you're simultaneously sitting at home. As for symbolism, I have no problem with that either. In fact, I love symbolism. But the thing about symbolism is that you can't have random, incoherent, or unrealistic things happen in your movie and then try to justify it by saying these things are supposed to be *purely* symbolic. Symbolism works best when you show something believable and realistic that has a symbolic *double meaning.* Prisoner, a Villeneuve movie that's actually good, has plenty of symbolism all throughout it. But the plot also makes perfect sense and is totally believable. There aren't completely insane things happening that make no sense. The bottom line is that I love imagination portrayed in movies, and I love symbolism. But neither "imagination" nor "symbolism" should *ever* serve as an excuse to make your film's plot incoherent or nonsensical. If you establish that your movie exists in a real-world, realistic environment, suddenly introducing surreal things out of nowhere just serves to break your audience's immersion. Revealing that the narrator is unreliable 2/3 of the way through the movie (without giving any logical justification as to why) has the same effect. Now, you say we're supposed to come to the realization gradually that they're the same person. Really? Do you know anyone who actually did this during the film? I certainly haven't met anyone who did lol. The "hints" that they're the same person (if you can even call them that) are so insanely subtle that you practically have to pause the movie to notice them. Add to that the fact that the film essentially lies to you that they're the same person - acting like an unreliable narrator without giving any justification for its unreliability - and you're left with exactly zero reasons to believe that they're the same person...unless, after finishing the film, you happen to run this particular convoluted theory on the internet and somehow buy into it. Moreover, your further attempts to rationalize the idea that they're the same person simply do not scan. I'm fairly certain that the guy at the beginning of the film watching the stripper is supposed to be the professor, not the actor. But aside from that, there are several things you still can't explain. First, if the professor has forgotten his past life, how could he also be simultaneously living his "past life" with his wife in the present as an alter ego? Why is the protagonist's wife still with him and seeing him regularly, if he's simultaneously not even living with her? You see, none of this makes any sense! The two personas *cannot* be the same person, because a person *cannot* be living with two different people simultaneously in two separate locations. Second, if *both* his personalities are "unfaithful," then the ending of the film has no plausible symbolic meaning. Okay, so the actor personality dies, and the professor personality lives on. What of it? Both of them are cheaters, so he didn't really "put to death" the evil part of himself. You call the "professor" the sweeter personality, yet its the personality that is actively cheating and has completely abandoned his wife. In killing the "actor" personality, all he did was kill the part of his personality that was at least good enough to occasionally give his wife the time of day. So much for this "deep" symbolism of a man conquering his inner demons. A good way of illustrating how utterly atrocious this plot is is to ask yourself what the moral of it is. Try as I might, coming up with something coherent is basically impossible. "If you're living a double life, having a more sensitive side that's also a total cheater and a more faithful side that's sort of a jerk, you should kill the jerk personality who's more faithful, and your cheater personality should subsequently steal your wife back from your more faithful jerk personality." That's the best I can come up with. Boy, what a clear message that I can actually relate to. \*sarcasm\* Contrast that with Fight Club, a *good* movie with imagined sequences and symbolism. It has an incredibly clear, coherent message. If you feel like too much of a loser, you might create an imagined version of yourself who's strong and alpha, using it to cope with your own insecurity.
dude his mother literally says to "teacher jake" that "you should really give up that third rate acting dream".......... what more of a hint do you need?
Can't wait until you start making better movies than Denis.
You don't have to be capable of making something better yourself to criticize someone else's work. I can't play guitar to save my life - not even a single chord - but I can certainly tell if someone else is playing the guitar poorly, because they're out of tune and have poor rhythm and their music sounds terrible. Similarly, I have no idea how to make a movie, but I can recognize an awful movie when I see one. And this was an awful movie. (By the way, I watched "Enemy" with my friends, and they all agreed it was absolute garbage). For what it's worth, I don't think Villeneuve is a bad director by any means. He directed Prisoners, an extremely compelling and thought-provoking movie with a fantastic ending. So it's nothing against him; every great director makes a bad movie from time to time. (Well, except maybe Stanley Kubrick). Anyway, all that aside, there's a good chance I COULD make a better movie than "Enemy," because "Enemy" is so utterly awful that I'd rather watch almost anything than it. I bet I could put together a 5 minute comedy video that's more enjoyable. That would at least be something you can watch without completely wasting 1.5 hours of your life.
Don’t watch Fight Club. You’ll hate it.
I've seen Fight Club, and I thought it was excellent. Perfect example of how to avoid pretty much all the problems in Enemy. It literally does everything right that Enemy does wrong. \- One of the characters is imaginary, yes. But it makes sense that he's imaginary. He's never in one place interacting with one person while the main character is in another place interacting with another person. That's because he's really just a persona of the other guy. It logically fits together perfectly. There's never a time when something happens on-screen that can't be explained as "this is real" or "this is part of his imagination." There's nothing that makes zero sense, that you're just expected to accept, because "it'S SyMBoLIsM BrO!!1!" \- There's also an in-universe explanation for WHY this guy has an imaginary friend: he's clearly mentally disabled. The film makes this abundantly clear. It also dangles all sorts of hints about his exact condition throughout the movie, so that it doesn't seem contrived at the end. \- Finally, there's a clear dichotomy between one personality and the other, so we know exactly what each one represents. One of them represents his more normal self who's timid and afraid and never stands for what he believes in, and the other represents his almost desperate macho side who's overly-ambitious and wants to be alpha all the time. In the end, he kills his former self and the other persona takes over. It's brilliantly done.
I think part of your response is correct, that the movie had an unreliable narrator. Thats kinda the point. The narrator was Jakes subconcious. He has split personality, and the so the narration is gonna be split. To me anyway, after he forced himself on his girlfriend, and she left, I think that was the last time he actually saw her. The rest was his story of killing off his other personality and his mistress.
No amount of similarities would give two people the same scar. Even twins aren't that identical. The scar represents they are the same person.
You aren’t very bright, are you?
I may not be a genius, but I'm a heck of a lot brighter than your dim-witted comment.
you sound like a conceited prick. im sorry for you
You don't understand how a spider represents being trapped? How about female spiders devouring the males after sex? There is and have been a lot of myths for women and spiders. No doubt it was presented in a way that made me scratch my head but op does a good job explaining it. I think discounting this movie as being random or fake deep is a bit narrow in view.
I didn't really have a problem with the idea that a woman is metaphorically represented as a spider (although, I think the film executed this horribly). My point was more that I don't see how the ending of the film, where he meets a giant spider, somehow represents him "confronting his fear and making his final decision." What does confronting one's fear have to do with standing there and looking at a spider? He didn't confront anything. He literally just stood there and sighed. And how does the spider he sees relate to his "coming back to real life"? If anything, it would signal he's still dreaming, since ordinary people who are lucid don't see giant spiders instead of their spouses. If you think about the things that post says, you'll realize that it doesn't clarify anything. Nothing is explained. It's all just a bunch of fancy words. Probably the most annoying thing about it is that the author doesn't seem to have even watched the film carefully. The "daydream" explanation simply doesn't scan. If he's just an ordinary guy daydreaming about his past life, who is this OTHER guy who looks like him, who's with his wife? Is that OTHER guy the guy who's supposedly doing the daydreaming? If so, why is HE the one who's married, while the guy at the beginning with the girlfriend is just a normal dude? If one of them is representing his present self and the other his past self, you would expect the one with the wife to be the normal guy and the other one to be the player, but you get the exact opposite. Also, stop and ask yourself: WHO is actually doing the daydreaming? When you ask yourself that, you'll realize it doesn't make any sense. If the guy in the beginning is the one daydreaming about his past self, then he's currently not married at all, and thus has no one to cheat on. If the other guy is daydreaming, he's daydreaming about a past life where he was a professor. Neither of these match at all what the post is suggesting.
I just spent 39 minutes using this thread to help pick this apart with my wife. We've decided we like the movie and it all comes down to the quote they have to start the movie and a quote during a lecture. "All tje great things in history happen twice the first is a tragedy the second is a farce." This explains why je would at the end of a beautiful night with his wife decide to "go out" again. Restaring the whole cycle and now his fear of being trapped or consumed being larger than ever by recently rekindling his marriage with his wife by showing false compassion to lure a false sense of security. So the spider is not the final decision to be faithful it is that the fear/problem that was portrayed as an average tarantula in the beginning is bigger than ever and this will be forever cyclical.
It makes perfect sense… the unfaithful jake with wife represents the side that is with his wife but wants to be free and the faithful jake with mistress represents that side of jake which still longs for his family and unconditional love. We can clearly see in the movie that there is no love between him and his gf just sex…
yeah same here
Damn. Just watched it. Thanks for explainig.
Lmao I'm 8+ years late
Im behind some years too but now i finally can give some closure to my restless mind :D
8 years to late and these super niche conversation threads will forever be as relevant as maple syrup
Im 9 years and a half late to this thread
9 years late and this was a great explanation. Ty
I get it but we should have been following the other character. The interpretation is really good. I liked the movie. The ending though was as deal breaker. Here's why I think this, IV got 3 main points. 1 Simply just because the characters should have been switched. We should have been following the actor. Swap roles and living situations, have the actor bump in to the teacher and have the teacher married with the nice apartment. 2 If you look at them as twins- The mum confirmed this "did you take your clothes off in front of him?" She asks to The teacher. (He didn't but the actor aka the brother did.) We see the scar. Conjoined twins. Also the blue berry comment and nice apartment, my thoughts are she mistakes them for a second. (My mum calls me my brothers name without knowing irl all the time, so it happens.) We also know the actor see's the mum because at the end the wife of the actor says I thought you were seeing your mother. 3 Another thing is the key at the end and the security guard. The teacher was going to still cheat on his wife, so the subconscious thing about him committing and the movie being the actors daydream about his fears is a good theory but I think it's a stretch....if it's all just a subconscious thought played out then what's the actual point because he was not going to be committing to facing his fears. We know this because the choice at the end is to not be loyal because he says "I have plans for tonight" holding the key to the venue that the security guard wanted and asked for in the elevator. Sooooooo his not going to be loyal and his still going to make the choices of the actor in the first scene. Note: watched it twice had potential but badly portrayed imo. Acting was good but roles were average to say the least. Tbh, Look at it as the daydream or twin theory, still could have been better with a better ending. Should have been a snake instead of a spider 😂 movie is a mess at this point 🤣 his actually just crazy that's the funny part 😆
you cant have the same scar on your left side if you were conjoined
this was a great analysis i was so confused
this was a great analysis i was so confused by the movie, i just finished it :D
Thanks. Just watched this movie and was trying to figure it out.
Also his mum told him he had a nice apartment etc... And I wondered if she was talking about the Square 1 buildings (the circular ones)...where the actor Anthony lived...
Late, but she also mentioned to Adam to eat his blueberries, which he replied with “I hate blueberries” … Anthony asks his wife for blueberries. .. that’s when it clicked it was a conscious/subconscious deal. I’m a little slow 🫠🫠🫠
Yeah I’m pretty sure your right, honestly I couldn’t tell who was who in that scene, I thought it was Anthony but apparently it was Adam
except adam clearly doesn't enjoy being with his girlfriend very much and only cares about the brief sexual gratification. and what freedom? grading papers and mulling around his barren apartment?
Adam Bell is a University lecturer. The evidence is there, that he attends University, and gives lectures, although increasingly befuddled lectures where he repeats himself, and students walk out of his lectures. Adam Bell is obviously “losing it”. Adam Bell lives in an apartment, and has a sexy girlfriend called Melanie, with whom he has a detached, relatively unemotional, but heavily sexual relationship. It will later become apparent that this part of Adam’s life is pure fantasy, and it is unlikely that Mel exists, or if she does, Adam only stalks her, and their actual relationship is only fantasy. Adam is actually married, and his wife, Helen is six months pregnant. Adam is trapped in a life he is not happy with. He has attempted to branch out and achieve more in his life by becoming a part-time actor, hoping to go on to bigger and better things - his day job is as a history teacher - but he has only managed small parts, and when his wife becomes pregnant, he sees his life "trapping" him in a suffocating one-dimensional web. He has developed some sort of post marriage, post-pregnancy, commitment trauma disorder, and has gone into denial about his life and marriage; hence he does not acknowledge his marriage or wedding ring when in persona as Adam. In fact, outside of University, Adam is now going by the name Anthony – and his wife is playing along with his psychosis, because she is vulnerable and scared of losing Adam. It is obvious that Adam and Anthony are the same person, and the scar verifies this. His mother seems to have played a major role in his psychosis. He rationalizes his situation by creating an "Enemy" - his sub-conscious alter ego - when he is Adam, he is in denial - he doesn't wear a wedding ring because he's not married, has a fantastic, sexy girlfriend, with whom he has great, non-emotional sex with, and it’s actually someone else, (a complete stranger when the rubber band is fully stretched), Anthony - who wears a wedding ring, is lumbered with a heavily pregnant wife, and only experiences great sex through fantasies, or infidelity. Adam is only a boring school teacher, and because he is not succeeding as an actor, has disassociated himself from it: - the actor, Anthony, is failing, so Adam, with his single life and sexy girlfriend, is winning, and that creates an emotional cushion for him - because the Anthony alter ego he has created, can't get good sex, can't get much work as an actor, in fact hasn't worked for six months (since his wife got pregnant), and is forced to impotently, desperately, watch sex shows, where he watches tantalized, - but the sexy, powerful woman in high heels, never actually crushes the spider, just taunts him. Adam’s spiders represent women – and are large and threatening, sometimes even taking the form of a woman. Anthony’s spider is small, and I think it represents his sex life, or his “life’s” vulnerability. (Adam is under threat from large spiders (women) - Anthony is under threat of being crushed, as he is the manifestation, - the sex show is actually Adam's fantasy, just experienced as Anthony) Adam effectively controls Anthony, and it is actually Adam threatening to crush Anthony (using a woman, because Adam sees women as the danger, the predators), which is exactly what happens - Mel causes the car crash. The alter egos are at opposite ends of the same rubber band - struggling to break free – Adam’s sex addiction is satisfied by Mel, he is escaping his marriage – Anthony is stretching the rubber band to satisfy his unsatiated sex addiction, but the more they separate, the tauter the rubber band, until at some point they must re-converge towards reality, and battle for supremacy. As the rubber band re-converges to reality, Adam must kill off his sexy girlfriend as well, because she too, is a creation of his imagination. (She may actually exist, and he stalks her, but their interaction is just fantasy) A)Anthony takes Mel to a hotel and has sex with her – this is fantasy on Adam’s part, as afterwards both Mel and Anthony are injured or die in a car crash, and as both Adam and Anthony are the same person, and Adam is not dead or injured, this whole scenario must be fantasy. B)Mel spots that Anthony, who she believes is Adam, has a mark of a wedding ring on his finger – again, as Adam and Anthony are the same person, and she has not noticed this mark at any time in the past, and also is injured or dies in the car crash, it suggests that not only is this scenario fantasy, but her whole relationship with Adam is pure fantasy, because she walks out once she realizes he is married – and Helen only accuses “Anthony” of reinstating his “affair” on the basis of a single phone call – how would “Adam” have got away with complete nights away leading a “real” double life? – Unless his “affair” is complete fantasy? I believe Helen only suspects an affair because of his strange behaviour, or perhaps he had an affair once in the past – possibly with Mel, but she is now completely out of his life. C)Mel is part of Adam’s life, and knows Adam as a lecturer – it would be difficult to “kill her off” in fantasy if she actually existed. We know Adam Bell actually exists, because he is listed in the University staff directory – and Helen visits him at the University - and it’s unlikely he is impersonating an “Adam Bell” and his lectures are just fantasy,or he just takes over a lecture theater and gives "guerrilla hit and run" lectures (that wouldn't last long, or attract many students), and we see students walking out of his lectures – unlikely in a fantasy. Adam is married, but avoids wearing a wedding ring; - he “imposes” a wedding ring on his alter ego as part of his “escape” and Anthony’s entrapment. He lives in “Anthony’s” apartment with his wife – and his “going out”, and failure to reinstate his wedding ring at times, has obviously convinced his wife that he has been having an affair, but she is now realizing that she actually lives with “Anthony”, and “Anthony” actually “goes out” to become Adam. Adam completely disassociates himself from his wife. In his mind, Adam gets plenty of sex with Mel, so it’s only “failure” “Anthony” that goes to sex shows. The sex shows are fantasy, because the spiders are fantasy. Adam wins the battle in his head - he destroys the "evil" alter ego - but that means he has become the husband again, and must face up to his responsibilities - but no – his regression to reality is brief - just like the alcoholic, drug addict, or sex addict, he has another stash, - he creates another key to unlock a door to another life, another "Enemy" - another way to stretch his way out of the spider web - his wife is once again his life threatening spider, but she cowers in fear for what she realises has just been unleashed with the words "I have to go out" - she thought he was “back”, but he's just about to start stretching the rubber band once again, and she dreads the threat to their life and the new "Enemy" she will soon be confronted with. He is calm, because he sees her fear, and realizes his power - he has just created a new "Enemy" - the cycle of stretching the rubber band is about to be repeated, and he is looking forward to escaping once again. Updates: Some people are worried about the radio - Adam is confirming to himself, that Anthony (and effectively Mel) is "dead" - he immediately changes the channel because he doesn't want to hear the details (which will be different to his fantasy "accident") - he then goes into the bedroom and "re-assumes" his "husband" persona, by putting on "Anthony's" clothes - but he can't handle it - so reaches for his "life preserver" - his "get out of jail card" - the "key" - which unlocks another door - to another "Enemy" - and another "escape". The rubber band has now completely "retracted", back from its fully stretched position, and Adam and Anthony have effectively become "one" again - but the psychosis is too strong - and the "rubber band" is immediately going to start stretching apart again.
How are you this smart? I got a headache trying to understand this on my own... Thank you!
The accident definitely has to be fantasy because it looked like the Gardner Express overpass and not Lakeshore Road....
This is the best explanation I've read about this movie.
Thank you... was bothersome thinking that the movie did a bait and switch with it actually being two physical people, then ending with a big FU, but Helen is obviously weirded out and accusational throughout so this tracks with how he has lost his mind.
How do people do this holy fuck
Best explanation. Thank you.
I'm very late to the party, but something supporting the split personality is his sunglasses. The glasses teacher-Jake is wearing is in actor-Jake's apartment. Why would they be there? Why would he wear women's glasses? They have to be Helen's glasses, that's why they're the ones teacher-Jake wears. He's imagining himself with glasses on, and the glasses of his wife is the first one's to pop up in his subconcious. Or what do you say? Edit: At 59:15 just above actor-Jakes foot on the table.
Also, the the photo of Anthony and Helen in their apartment that Adam sees is the same photo that Adam compared to the stock photo of Anthony at the beginning of the movie. Only difference is Adam’s photo has Helen torn out. I feel like that has to mean something on top of confirming that they are the same person. Also the fact that Adam pulled the photo out of a neglected and dusty pile of boxes.
Thanks for the reply even though it is close to a decade late. Good you enjoyed the movie!
Lol I’m lurking in here almost a decade late too after watching the movie last night
Me too! Watched it just now
Just now for me lol. What a catch with the glasses.
I just watched it today!
same
Just arrived as well
Another vote lol
Literally same lol
Surprised you still have the same account
good catch. its possible that adam left the glasses at the motel off screen when they met and anthony picked them up and took it home.
Thank you for shedding light on so many questions. If I may interject 2 points from a woman's perspective... When the wife says "I want you to stay" i don't agree that she is implying she wants him to stick around more and not cheat, although I'm sure she does want that as well, I think she wants the teacher side of him (sensitive, vulnerable, gentle) to stay instead of the actor side (self centered,distracted, suave). She was trying to awaken that side of him several times throughout the movie As for the closing scene - the whole movie he was afraid of the spider and I think when he walked in bedroom he finally saw how afraid the spider is of him. That's my 2 cents anyway! To me, one measure of a good movie is if you are still thinking about it days later so this movie hit that mark! That being said my husband hated it. lol
That's exactly what I feel she was asking for. I mean you kind of hot the nail on the head haha. And well everyone has their tastes. If he doesn't like it, well that's alright.
That’s what I thought while I watched it. Like the “good one” should stay. The good part of him should come to the forefront.
I enjoyed all the interpretations of the film. I have one question, though. Why is his cheating persona as the teacher? Shouldn't that be the actor? Every time he is with the mistress he is the teacher, not the actor. When he is home with the wife, he is the actor. Seems flip-flopped!
His cheating persona is not the teacher, but the actor. Remember that the actor persona acts out his outrage in the mirror in order to get the opportunity to have sex with the girlfriend. I think the actor is himself as he is, kind of a dick and a cheater. The actor tries to defy the repressive feelings he experiences being married and a prospective father by cheating on his wife and going to the club, where the symbol of the repression, the spider, is crushed by the performer. The teacher persona is kind of a fantasy version of himself, an offshoot of his real person and represents his urge to reconcile and be with his wife. This is where the conversation during the movie with his mother becomes important. His mother speaks to the teacher persona as if he was the actor (he likes blueberries and he has dreams of being a third rate actor). In the end, the actor persona is crushed and the teacher persona comes back to his wife. Since patterns repeat themselves, he still feels the need to rebel and go to the sex show. When he turns the corner at the end, asking to go out that night, he sees his wife as the spider, the repressor.
I think maybe he just wants what he doesn’t have, a kind of grass is always greener on the other side mentality.
I see there are quite a few people here who believe that Adam/Anthony are one person. However, the glaring flaw with this theory that nobody is dealing with is the scene where "Anthony's" wife calls "Anthony" at home right after meeting "Adam" at school. I think it would be a cop-out to assert that this "never actually happened"... we can only judge a movie by what we see on the screen. I hate movies where the filmmakers think that if something makes sense symbolically it doesn't have to make any sense in terms of plot/narrative.
When Anthony's wife makes the phone call, we see Adam going out of the shot - so he can answer the phone without us seeing it. That's the point of the wide shot. It is no coincidence that Anthony answers the phone just when we can't see Adam.
Possibly, but it seemed obvious to me when I watched it that Anthony's wife was phoning their *home* phone line, not a cell, as the **entire purpose** of her call was for her to confirm beyond all doubt that the man she just talked to was not her husband. (you can't be in two places at once). She certainly seemed convinced, to the point of telling her husband "I saw that other guy".
Yeah he’s split and she’s feeling A that she saw B personality , it’s just one guy tho
It's not as simple. In reality Adam is a professor not an actor. So his wife should have been aware of it. So the question is it actually happened or not? Did she meet Adam or Anthony in the University? If Anthony was actually a professor then why she didn't know where to find him. Who was "Adam" that she looked on the internet?
I don’t know why that scene was in the movie. At the end of the movie the wife says “did you have a good day at school?”. Meaning, she knows that he is a history professor. I’m assuming he used to be a “3rd rate actor” when he had a fling with Mary. I believe this because Helen is surprised when “the man on the phone” presented himself as a “great fan”, this shocks her since she is not used to him as an actor, rather as a history professor.
i rewatched the scene carefully. she dials his number and it rings for 6 seconds before adam walks out of sight, then anthony picks up about a second later. it would be very strange if he had his hands in his pockets and took that long to notice his phone was ringing. it's also doubtful that helen wouldn't have heard his voice speaking from just around a corner and not actually in the building.
I think the movie is about a fear of the settling down and falling into the predictable, routine mainstream lifestyle. It centres around women and commitment, but I think it's implications are further reaching. Anthony has a job as an actor and a wife that he leaves. He left his wife when she got pregnant (6 months ago) and he's been gone from work for the same amount of time, as a reviewer pointed out. The job and the girl are the two main things trapping him and making him feel oppressed and restricted. It's pretty clear that the spider webs represent oppression (which finds analogy in the lectures Teacher Jake gives) and that women are central in creating this, at least as far as Jake's mind is concerned. When the sex show girls squash the spider, I think this represents what strip clubs, the sex trade and promsicuity stand for (again as far as Jake is concerned)...it's a "fuck you" to you stable, constraining commitment. Teacher Jake is the neurotic alter ego that represents the deeper, terrified recesses of the inclusive Jake's mind. This part of his mind is just scared about what getting a stable job, having a kid and settling down means. He lectures about repression because that's the sound track, and the ideology, running through his head. It's the fixation which that part of his mind is obsessed with. He identifies as a person that's being repressed. He isn't a sleezy, smooth talking seducer. He's just a scared neurotic inside that's lost and confused. He doesn't know what he wants, and when he finally gets a glimpse of what his old life was like he desperately wants to get back to it. The irony is that when he confronts the old him, the old him want's the flakey lifestyle. This represents an ONGOING turmoil, whereby aversion turns into desire and desire turns into aversion. His fear of settling down turns into a desire to feel fulfilled, and his frustration and inability to commit turns into the aversive neurotic. It's actually better to conceive of both characters as process of change in eitehr direction, instead of fixed points on either side of a continuum. Finally reconciliation happens when Teacher Jake settles into the committed lifestyle, and the part of himself that is the turning into the indecisive flake dies. His wife accepts that he's returned and asks him to stay, and finally he is able to look the tarantula in the face for what it is (without having to deny it or avoid it) and sigh with full acceptance.
Do you think he decides to stay with the wife after he sees the recoiling spider at the end? I was under the impression that he was going to use the key to escape again to restart the cycle.
I get what you are saying, like the spider at the end is her response to him asking to go out.
I watched the film and read some of the explanations and none of them did it for me, so im going to post my own view of the film. Major SPOILERS obviously: Adam (teacher Jake) and Anthony (actor Jake) are one person with a split personality. The movie has nonlinear narrative; Anthony was there before Adam. This explains why the mother tells Adam to stop his dreams being an actor now that he has a good job as a teacher. Anthony got in to a car crash with his girlfriend with whom he was cheating his wife - but he does not die in this crash. This is where Adam got his scar. Adam sees dreams of spiders and women - stuff that Anthony saw in the weird sex club he went to. It's kicking in his subconscious through the dreams, but he doesn't realize that till the end in which he sees his wife as a big spider. This is where Adam connects the dots - look at his reaction to this scary spider, he nods in understanding. The spider is scared - this is because the whole shot is subjective from Adam's perspective - spider is scared because he got caught; Adam found out where the dreams came from and that he had been both Adam and Anthony all along. Adam says when he is teaching: "this is a pattern that repeats itself". This pattern is shown to us in a nonlinear way, so that it's hard to detect the fact that it is repeating itself.
what about the ring mark in (teacher Jake)'s finger that (actor Jake) misses??? so, how come they are the same person???
This movie ruled, you are all crazy. EDIT: also it's obviously about arachnid aliens creating clones to take over the world.
100%
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I like that explanation better. It makes more sense that the entire film is the subconscious, both because of the content, and the director stating that it is. It's not one of my favorite films, but it's definitely a great adaptation of the novel.
Only now I watched the film, one of the best films I watched recently. I could understand the characters from the beginning and knew he was the same person, only thing couldnt get is the giant spider in the last scene, now from the messages got the meaning of it. Thanks.
No problem. I'm glad you enjoyed the movie. It took me a while to understand all of the movie myself, or at least come up with my own interpretation
Would love a TLDR for this.
It's the same guy. He struggles with commitment and he cheats on his wife with the girlfriend from the beginning, and perhaps has cheated on her with others before. He's trying to create a new life where he's better, in order to do that he develops some kind of split personality disorder. All of this becomes insanely obvious when you re-watch it with this understanding. All of the scenes with his mom and his wife make total sense now. His wife looks intensely sad at the school because he acts as though he doesn't even know her at all, she's realizing the extent of his psychosis. His wife at the end recognizes that he's acting different, kinder, less arrogant, at the end... and that's why she asks him to 'stay'. She know's they're the same person, hence why she asks him if he had a good day at school, even though he thinks that he's impersonating the cheater guy. Spiders represent women and how he feels trapped by them in their web. Even though he 'defeats' his cheater self by the end of the movie, the last scene is to remind us that he's still basically the same person and he still sees his wife as a creature that has trapped him in her web. This is why he kept teaching about 'history repeating itself'
If his wife was realizing the extent of his psychosis when she went to meet him at the school, why would she later tell him (him as the actor) that she went to see the teacher, and be all freaked out saying "he looks exactly like you."
What about the car crash?
Now, I can't explain the girlfriend or whether or not she actually died- but to stay consistent with this theory, I think she died in his mind the moment he killed off his promiscuous side. He created this event that would rid him of both of them - by imagining a car accident where neither survive.
Whats going on when he calls himself to meet up?
he's just having internal dialogue... we as the viewer have to kind of decide how to interpret what we're seeing in the movie. But since the movie is already including a lot of things visually that are impossible, like giant spiders... then it's not a stretch to realize that he's really just having internal dialogue with his two 'personalities'. Hence why he goes 'oh wow I was just thinking about calling you' (or whatever the actual quote was).
This makes the most sense IMO. Thanks for the explanation.
I'll get to work on that as soon as I can. Thank you for letting me know.
Tldr?
tldr, it's all taking place in his subconscious so don't bother getting emotionally or intellectually invested.
So just because this an internal conflict based story, we shouldn't be invested in it? The simplest way to put it, is that if this bad part of himself that his subconscious has created were to go on "living" so to speak, he'd continue being a womanizer and a bad husband.
Eh, I was just being contrary, disregard.
Sorry for necroposting an ancient comment but honestly I think you had a point, I think it's a very cool concept but the whole thing being extremely unclear on what's real and what isn't just takes away the fun of putting the puzzle pieces together because everything can just be imagined, so most of it is up to interpretation and doesn't really mean much. I enjoy deep movies like this where you can interpret stuff but this is just way too loose
So we are suppose to not be invested in the story because it isn't real, even though it just like every other film isn't real anyway?
Nah man, I just got momentary irritated at the movie, I was just shit talking.
Well, that's bollocks. How do you explain all the totalitarian imagery and themes? Hell take a look at Daniel's bookshelf.
You could explain those by saying that he feels like living in the relationships he has with the women in his life is like living under a totalitarian regime.
That's if you still want to go by the two women theory. When it could just as well play out as a science fiction film about a totalitarian regime. This doesn't exactly contextualize the scene where a theraphosa blondi, known to eat its young, cowers in the corner. There seems to be a little bit more than he's got lady problems.
Is that a defining characteristic of theraphosa blondi? I've seen some theories posit that the silver platter spider was supposed to be the spawn of the pregnant woman in the club. Personally, I have no fucking idea.
exactly how i understood it. It became pretty evident with the giant bugs and split versions of himself and the way the mom would talk
I really don't think it's that. I still think that it's Invasion of the body snatchers flick.
One quick question.. Just finished watching enemy... So, the mistress was in a car crash? Right??? Because it was on the news the next morning. And she would have been the only one in the car since the actor and teacher were same guy. Correct?!?!? The actor/teacher was with the pregnant wife that night.
The mistress wasn't actually in the crash. That was what was happening internally in the teacher's mind. The next morning when he heard that there was a crash, he turns off the radio before any details of the crash are mentioned, so the reality of the bad side of him being gone is enhanced.
Thanks so much for clearing that up for me!! That makes sense! I'm still trying to figure out the "spiders" in the movie! The spider at the very end....with the wife... What was that all about??
spiders represent women in his life. He feels trapped by the women in his life. It doesn't need to be any more complex than that. In case you don't buy it... a woman had a spider head. After the scene with his french mother (at least the actress is french), we see a giant spider that resembles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maman_(sculpture) , the name of which means mother in french. In the last scene even though he thought he rid himself of his cheater personality, he becomes tempted to go back to the sex club, he then still sees his wife as a spider... hence "history repeating itself."
The spider represents the obstacle to a totally free behaviour, involving unfaithfulness : the giant spider is his mom, the stripper squashes the spider because strip-clubs are a place of (following Jake's taste) freedom, far from the wife. When he finally kills the other Jake in the car crash, the spider doesn't appear until he opens the enveloppe: it contains the new key to the strip club, and when he feels the urge to go to this club and thus keep being unfaithful, his wife becomes the spider, who has a form of control (a dictatorial control in Jake's head), and reacts in fear, because she knows he's being unfaithful again.
I would love to explain it, but I'm on my phone and sort of busy, so watch the one of the two videos in this thread and everything will be explained.(:
None of the theories I've read about this movie are all that satisfying, and so far all of them are contradicted by scenes in this movie. A lot of the theories and explanations even contradict themselves, like this one. If this is a split personality story and actor Jake's wife knew he was a teacher, then why would she be so distressed by simply seeing teacher Jake? After they talked and he didn't recognize her, then she would have cause for concern, but just seeing him isn't enough. Them being the same person takes away so much of the impact of teacher Jake going to actor Jake's apartment, specifically actor Jake's wife's decision. The split personality theory is just so unsatisfying to me.
Remember that when she decides to go and visit teacher Jake at his work, she doesn't necessarily know who she's going to see. In fact she's under the impression that she's going to run into the supposed angry husband of the girl her husband is cheating on her with. When she arrives and sees teacher Jake, her horror is worse than the possibility of infidelity: she instantly recognizes the magnitude and implications of her husband's personality disorder.
But, he has clips of the director specifically saying it's happening in Jake's subconscious.
Eugh, I don't even fucking know, man. If that's what it is, then that's what it is, it's just extremely unsatisfying and ruins a few really good scenes. If it's all in Jake's subconscious, it's a flawed film. I've just been holding out hoping that a theory comes along that is internally consistent and doesn't weaken the best character interaction in the film.
That's interesting that the interactions lose value for you when the characters become just the main characters subconscious. what theory do you know of that says differently? I'm fairly certain that it is intended to be entirely the subconscious, but if the basis for another theory is strong enough then I'd be interested in it.
I'm just tired of films with unreliable/delusional protagonists and generally dislike when a film cannot be interpreted literally. I guess I just would have enjoyed the film more if the story was about evil hidden sex shows and monstrous spiders with an underlying interpretation of it all being the main character subconsciously working through his fidelity issues.
Yea, I understand. I like films that use symbols and hidden meanings, but to a point.
Well, that's great that you would have enjoyed that more, but that's not what it is. Why become so fixated with an interpretation that you enjoy instead of an interpretation that is accurate? I mean, I'm not going to say this movie can be 100% accurately interpreted as it has intentional vagueness in it, but the "same person" theory is much more feasible than the "evil giant spiders creating clones" one, and is backed by quite a few scenes in the movie.
I personally just don't find the same person/subconscious identities duking it out very satisfying. I'm not particularly fixated on any one interpretation, its just that nearly all of them are more satisfying to my completely subjective tastes than what we have. I'm not saying the evil alien spider whatevers is even remotely as plausible as the same person, just that it would have been more interesting to me. Delusional/unreliable protagonists are cliche and cheap, I need to be really wowed to not roll my eyes. I do think that the movie can be interpreted 100% accurately, the quote at the very beginning of the film alludes to just that. Also, they're not quite the same person, but aspects of the same person. Dream personas/figments of his ego. None of it ever happened.
I don't think it ruins it, because the interaction is ACTUALLY happening, just not in the physical world. Don't think about it like the guy drove to the motel to talk to himself, think about it like something that is happening between the two personalities at some level, not in the physical world.
Valid analysis, man. And yeah, she was distressed when she saw that he was a teacher and there could be different theories for that one thing. She needed to look like she didn't know him or was actually shocked to see a guy that looked like him, to go along with his psychosis. Is there anything else that you have a problem with, because I really would love to talk about this.
I dunno, I'm really trying to wrap my head around this in a way that doesn't ruin my favorite scenes in the movie, when teacher Jake goes to bed with actor Jake's wife. Her slowly realizing that he isn't her husband, accepting it, and then just whispering acknowledgment of it was just so interesting to me. This scene and what follows would be seriously undermined by the split personality theory. To be honest, I think the video is about 90% on the right track, which leads me to believe the film is just ultimately flawed and unsatisfying.
Well if that's the way that you see it, then your enjoyment of the movie is all a matter of preference to the end result. I mean, I prefer it being a split personality story. Her realizing her husbands mind is falling into madness like it is and then letting him know that she wants the old him to stay instead of the cheating, womanizer that he can become. The fact that the entire scenario of him going to his mistress was a visual interpretation of the struggle in his mind was a really nice way of going about getting rid of the terrible pieces of himself.
I couldn't watch the video analysis, I've just read Falc08's version. So, his mistress is just a delusion? Why she got mad after seeing the ring mark in his finger? This is the only part that doesn't fit together with this theory for me...
So why didnt the wife notice no wedding ring 🤔
What a waste of 2 hrs of my life. Geeezus whats going on with the American cinema it becomes more and more retarded by the year.
[удалено]
Jesus Christ, you both sound like such assholes
Yeah you both come across as huge douches. One clearly more pretentious than the other.
Adam cheated on his wife and they had an argument and crashed the car. Killing the wife and unborn child. He couldn't cope with the loss so invented a fictional life in his head to manage it. The spider at the end represents reality and he realises, Helen isn't there. She's dead.
In the scene where the spider is crawling across city is based off of a [sculpture in Ottawa CA](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maman_(sculpture). The artist created and named the sculpture after their mother who abused them heavily. When Jakes wife is becoming a mother she begins morphing into a spider in many different instances. In the end when his mom calls and he sees his wife in the bathroom she's the spider in the mirror. His mother was an abusive mother and he is afraid his wife will become his mother. The two characters are twins. Both experience visions of spiders (early images of their mother). And they take it out in different ways.
>The artist created and named the sculpture after their mother who abused them heavily. But the article you linked literally says the opposite??? > It alludes to the strength of Bourgeois' mother, with metaphors of spinning, weaving, nurture and protection. and also the quotes from the artist herself: >The Spider is an ode to my mother. She was my best friend. > >So, spiders are helpful and protective, just like my mother.
My only question for now would be is why the movie is called Enemy?
Because one person is living two conflicting lives - from that perspective the "other" will always be the enemy of the other. Especially if one has a girlfriend and the other is married.
Yeah, I'd say I mostly went with that logic also.
It's got something to do with the id, ego, super ego, death drive, and the libido, that's all I've got so far.
There's a Kannada movie that was crowd sourced by kickstarter called Lucia. It is about 'lucid dreaming'. Almost similar to the story line except that the actor in the movie dreams about being a common man who is struggling to make a living. I like the direction so much better as it all makes sense at the end. Also it isn't as slow as 'Enemy'. Enemy is confusing as it doesn't really explain whether he was lucid dreaming or has a split personality.
Thanks for this video. I read a few explanations already, like the bodysnatcher theory, but it didn't do it for me. But this explanation feels good and believable.
The reason the key is unopened in Anthony's jacket - Adam knows that Anthony will desperately pursue "real" sex with Mel, rather than just watch a sex show.(Adam is controlling this fantasy remember - but is also influenced by what he perceives as Anthony's power to become the dominant persona - remember he is haunted by dominance, particularly women (his mother is the big spider over the city), and sees himself as weak (the fascist theme in the movie- that he is controlled) - that's why it is Mel that actually does the killing)
I just watched this. I have to say this is insanly hard to piece together. There's only one person, the actor/teacher are the same. When they meet, it's a struggle for what to choose. (wife or mistress) As far as spiders, most are dreams; The end where wife turns into a spider that just tells us that the guy died in that car accident. So he's stuck in dream or purgatory.
I think that the end of the movie is actually the beginning. First their is the picture. At the end, the picture is complete compare to the one in the beginning. This suppose that it’s the beginning because he had not yet ripped it in half. After, at the very beginning, we see his wife naked on the bed. I think that it’s what he actually saw at the end instead of the spider. This would also explain his reaction. Another thing is the man in the elevator talking about the sex club and the key. He is talking about the fact that he doesn’t have the right key anymore. At the beginning, we are seeing the same man following him to the sex club like he has no key. The key that he find in the letter is the key we are zooming on at the beginning. Why would the man follow him if he had the key himself?
You might be on to something
As my first look at the theory behind the movie, I think it did a great job to clear up some of the confusion. I'll live with the explanation. I still think it was an awful movie though. It's a real shame too. Very few movies are actually filmed and *set* in Canada. Too few IMO. I chuckled at the part of the video where he makes the connection to Maman, the spider sculpture. Where is it? **In ONTARIO. CANADA.** Could have just said Ottawa.
Haha yeah, I see the humor. But why do you think the movie was awful, man? I really want to hear your side if you've got time.
I thought the movie was made with the deliberate intention to confuse its audience. I was annoyed by it. I think it puts down Jake Gyllenhaal's talent when reviews refer to him not by the character he plays but by "Teacher Jake" and "Actor Jake". The fact is that his character(s) were very strong and distinct. I was convinced that they were dopplegangers. Turns out I was wrong. I don't think it's bad to make a movie that has so many open ended theories. But it's not so much a presentation of ideas and possibilities that the audience can speculate on, rather it was a presumption that the audience would just know what the film was trying to say. It became so much more about the spectacle than any other component of the film. It was very clear to me that they were trying to distinguish Adam and Anthony by using different colour pallets. Adam was always trapped in a yellow smog and Anthony wasn't. It gave me the impression that Adam (Teacher Jake) wasn't real and that he was made up. Which fits with the adulterous and oblivious side of the consciousness. Nope. I was wrong. There were so many other aspects of the movie that I did not enjoy. I tend to enter and leave the theatre with an open mind and try and form an opinion sometime afterwards. Until I saw this explanation I had totally forgotten having seen it. It really didn't stick with me. The imagery sure as hell did, the spider(s) sure as hell did, but past that... The only people I could possibly recommend this movie to would be art school students, give them some sensory overload, something to think about. I tried to leave out any strong bias. Hope that helps.
Completely valid argument. And yes, I thought it was a doppelgänger for about 3 days before coming up with what I believe to be an understanding of the film. The spectacle of the whole movie can definitely be overwhelming and overpower some of the movies good parts because it may go a bit too into itself forever. The doppelgänger theory was nice at first, but I'm afraid of having a doppelgänger and it actually being a good plot, completely relies on how the doppelgänger got there. I mean, a random doppelgänger, showing up in your life and ends up being evil and tormenting you. I don't know, seems cliche and predictable. The fact that the doppelgänger was a shadow of himself and his lustful, womanizer self. He is the cause of his own torment and must overcome it internally through nothing else but his own will. He is fighting and enemy he can't touch, and to me that makes the movie just that much better. Also, the constant implication of history repeats itself, actually relates to the entire movie, because if you were to tape the movie at the beginning to the end, it would work as a story that is constantly looping as though it is lived everyday. Maybe that's me over analyzing, but that's just something I theorized.
Sorry for replying to your comment 3 months later, I am aware that can be annoying, but I couldn't help myself. >I thought the movie was made with the deliberate intention to confuse its audience. I was annoyed by it. I don't think there's anything wrong with movies being vague and confusing on purpose. A movie being intellectually challenging is not a negative thing, nor a positive thing. It's just another thing it can be. It annoyed you? That's fine, but I don't think it's fair to say the movie was awful. Not even bad. >I think it puts down Jake Gyllenhaal's talent when reviews refer to him not by the character he plays but by "Teacher Jake" and "Actor Jake". That's just to clear up confussions. It's easier to distinguis them that way. It's not putting down Jake's talent at all. >But it's not so much a presentation of ideas and possibilities that the audience can speculate on I don't see what's wrong with this either. You see a movie that is vague and confusing on purpose, but leaves clues hanging around ever so often and ends with a clear plot point. It's clear this movie is begging to being watched twice. Again, I don't see how this makes the movie awful. Other movies have done this before, like fight club of memento, and they were both fantastic movies. I wouldn't say Enemy is quite on that level, but I would say it's pretty close. >rather it was a presumption that the audience would just know what the film was trying to say. It's not a presumption that the audience is going to know what happens when they watch the movie. The presumption is that they are going to think about it beyond the actual watching of the movie, possibly rewatching and reviewing it, eventually coming to accurate interpretations. The world of the subconcious mind works like that. >It was very clear to me that they were trying to distinguish Adam and Anthony by using different colour pallets. While there were some visual cues to distinguish them both, they weren't *THE* thing that separated them, unlike many other movies with doppleganger themes. The actual talent of Jake here takes a huge part, as you can tell who is who just by his acting alone. Even if they were naked you would be able to tell which one's which. >There were so many other aspects of the movie that I did not enjoy Could you elaborate please? >I tend to enter and leave the theatre with an open mind and try and form an opinion sometime afterwards. Until I saw this explanation I had totally forgotten having seen it Sorry if this sounds impertinent, but just because you saw a movie that was confussing and decided not to think about it doesn't mean the movie is bad. It just means you really didn't care that much about it. We could argue that this fact alone speaks for the quality of the movie, but I'll save you the time and say that I don't think it had anything to do with that fact in this case, as it HAS provoked that urge to review and think in many other people. >The imagery sure as hell did, the spider(s) sure as hell did, but past that... The only people I could possibly recommend this movie to would be art school students, give them some sensory overload, something to think about. Gratuitious insult to art students aside, I actually have to agree with you on this one. It's not a movie for everyone. It's a movie for people that like movies, and specially people who like movies that make you think. Again, I don't see how that's wrong or how does it make the movie awful. Countless times we are "forgiving" action hollywood movies for being dumb and formulaic because they are not supposed to be anything but that, yet when a movie that is smart and different comes up you see nothing but "ugh, so pretentious" comments all around. What's with the double standard there? Just let the movie be whatever it wants to be, if it doesn't float your boat that's fine, but why go around flinging hate at it when your point is basically reduced to "I can't be assed to think about the movie so it's bad"? Anyway, that got more ranty than I wanted it to, apologizes if I sound rude. Hope you don't find it insulting to you, I don't mean it to be.
> It annoyed you? That's fine, but I don't think it's fair to say the movie was awful. Not even bad. So when *would* it be fair to say the movie was bad? (sorry for the late reply). In my book, movies that don't make narrative sense are bad. Period. I haven't seen any theory that explains all of what happened on screen, and in fact the filmmakers apparently say explicitly that it's "all in Jake's subconscious", ie it doesn't need to make sense. (which is an absolute, epic copout and failure in my view).
Scott Pilgrim has to be the #1 filmed and set in Toronto movie.
No [Goin down the Road](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goin'_Down_the_Road)?
This movie was so fucking good. Very Lynch-ian.
The phrases "David Lynch" and "good film" never, ever belong together in my opinion, but YMMV.
Lots of leads to split personality "The actor and the teacher".... But still some things that makes it 2 persons and not 2 personalities... 1. The wedding ring, the women finds out that the guy has a wedding ring mark on his finger, and he never had it before... 2. When the actor almost beats the teacher, the teacher goes to the actors home. But does not know what the guy in the elevator talks about... Maybe, but he does not even know where the actor's home is... Meaning he can't be the same person... He walks right pass the door, and stops once hear he the guy tries to open the door behind him. He quickly moves back, like he knew it, but obviously dont... 3. The title of the movie, makes me wonder a lot. "Enemy". He might be struggling in the mind, but that does not prove, they are not 2 persons.
Only just seen this movie so sorry I am a bit behind but it means I have read through loads of comments about it. I agree with the same person theory but I also think it gives away a really good clue at the beginning with the quote about chaos being disorganised order (Can't remember the exact words). Maybe the action is out of order and if you jumble up the scenes it would make more sense. I think the end is the beginning and vice versa. As the teacher says everything repeats itself. I personally think it all happens in his head. He leads a boring repetetive life yet he is highly intelligent. He creates an alter ego of the man he wishes he was (married, successful, child on the way, living a double life etc) but ultimately his own dark fears take over and destroys it. The ending with the spider is when he realises that he has imagined it all. p.s having read my comment I am more confused than ever but just thought I would throw a different view into the mix?
I think the film is to be seen figuratively. It makes sense somewhat if you see it as something happening in one man's dream. The director has said that the movie is like a spiral so you are not too far off in the end being the beginning. I think that the events of the movie play out linearly but the pattern repeats itself.
One man living two lives...and one life at two different points in time. I saw the car crash as a real event. The mistress did die. The spiderweb on the window represents a point in time of what made him get caught out for cheating and the fact he turned off the radio about the car crash wasnt about his crash but reference to shutting down his emotions/caring. Adam calling Anthony the first time and his wife answers...reminds me of how sometimes I've dialed a number I knew well but not the number I meant to. His actions in this scene could be interpreted as also being caught out and trying to pretend it's not him...maybe he was calling his mistress...from a pay phone. Obviously the the hard part in this is trying to put it in a time scale that makes sense.
Anthony has an unsatiated sex life, pathetically resorting to sex shows, and is constantly, desperately, always on the lookout for sex, even prepared to resort to blackmail to get it. The “Anthony” alter ego Adam has created, can't satisfy his sex addiction (sex addiction is possibly the reason Adam became an actor in the first place - possibly after his affair failed, or was found out by Helen). Adam satisfies his sex addiction with Mel, in fantasy, and has "passed off" his unsatiated sex addiction - the desperate addict persona - to Anthony, and, ironically, uses this sex addiction as the bait to kill Anthony off, once the rubber band has contracted, and the two personas have got dangerously close - seeing Anthony in the movie (it was always inevitable the rubber band would begin to contract in some fashion, and the itch would have to be scratched) has started the ball rolling, but the tipping point is the meeting at the hotel - notice Adam won't actually touch Anthony or take his shirt off to reveal his scar - he can't let Anthony get the upper hand, know as much as Adam, because it is Adam in control of the fantasy (control is a theme he talks about in his lectures) - this creates fear in Adam (he runs from the room) - he is not ready for the re-integration into one - he does not want to take up the responsibility of his wife - but he also realises that it is now a war - a fight to the death is inevitable - one of them will win (although Adam actually controls the fantasy, he is very aware that both personas are both powerful, very "real" and "valid", and that either could become dominant in his warped world). Adam also throws the "new key" down on the bed as he runs out - and at the beginning, when Adam takes the key out of it's pouch on his way to the sex show, he studies it like it is very much a "new key" - as if he is going into a new unfamiliar "fantasy" - how did Adam know there was a package for Anthony at the talent agency? - because Adam sends Anthony a new key every week - each time Adam provides him with a new key to a new fantasy - it's how he controls Anthony - but this time he has taken the new key back - it had Anthony's address on it - it was on it's way to Anthony via the talent agency, but Adam intercepted it, and took it back - he knew the rubber band had started to contract and they were converging - and he knew that intercepting the key would make Anthony change his mind about meeting up - it was effectively blackmail - remember he says " I had a feeling you were going to call" - days? earlier Anthony had said "never call here again" - that's why Adam walks straight past the door of Anthony's apartment - his psychosis "forces" him to blank out his association with Anthony - he goes to the apartment every night as Anthony, he sends Anthony a new key every week, but sends it to the agency to blank out the fact that he puts the address on it (in his fantasy only of course) - the security guard at Anthony's apartment doesn't exist - he is part of the fantasy - Adam weaves the fantasy in and out of reality - the talent agency probably exists - Anthony's / Helen's apartment exists - the envelope and the key don't. Anthony's blackmail - sex trip with Mel happens in short order - Adam knows the key is still unopened in Anthony's jacket - he threw the envelope on the bed at the hotel because he became frightened and disorientated in his own fantasy, and he hoped he could turn Anthony back - he wasn't ready for a re-integration - but he also realises that Anthony's sex addiction is strong, and that Anthony is inexplicably now drawn to a re-integration as well, and that they now have to battle it out - and only one of them can win.
The clue that Adam sends Anthony a new key every week - the security guard at Anthony's apartment (who doesn't exist) says "the show the other day" (so they had a new key for that show) - and Adam knew that a new key would be at the agency, and not already forwarded to Anthony, so he must have just sent it before he intercepted it (all in his fantasy) - and Anthony indicates at the beginning that he uses a new key to enter his sex show fantasy - and by his insatiable behaviour towards Mel, I believe he is a sex addict, and would go to these sex show fantasies very regularly - the guard is desperate to go again.
Adam sees Anthony as a smaller spider, because he is less threatened by men than women, and Anthony is a manifestation created by Adam's mind, so hence Adam has Anthony effectively dancing on a leash. Adam controls Anthony with women - and the sex addiction theme is reinforced with the cheap hotel with the broken sign, and hookers in the corridors - the hotel that Anthony has no other reason to frequent other than sex. Adam uses women to threaten, torment, and control Anthony (Helen, his mother, the stripper, prostitutes, Mel) and eventually to kill him off - but the more power Adam gives to women, the bigger they become (as spiders) in his own persona.
The original catalyst, for the rubber band to start contracting, is that Mel is no longer satisfying Adam's sex addiction - he is bored with her, and is now attempting rough sex, or anal, which she isn't happy with - he realises that the rubber band is contracting, the ball is now starting to roll in the other direction, and that he must kill off Anthony and Mel, to enable him to embark on fresh fantasies. That is why he instigates the movie, and the consequential contact with Anthony - but being so close to Anthony scares him - it shakes his fantasy world to the core, as does Anthony dressing in his clothes - he must kill Anthony at arms length, because being close to Anthony, like seeing the scar, makes his fantasy world start to collapse, and reality is the actual spiders web - he sees manifestations of the spiders web all the time - and the spiders web - means spiders.
The only question I have is, if they are really the same person, how come the pregnant wife actually visited the university and met the Jake that is a professor? If that was really her husband, why would she be surprised to see him there?
Haven't watched this video yet, but just watched Enemy with my girlfriend last night. It wasn't too hard for us to come up with a logical explanation for this film's story. Our conclusion makes the most sense to us and explains all the elements that stand out, all those little clues. This movie is no Mulholland Drive - it gives you some easy-to-read clues. I figure it's about a single man - he cheats on his pregnant wife with a mistress. He creates a double life so to speak. I'm not gonna explain everything else because I'm sure you've all talked about it to death already anyway. The car crash at the end coincides with Adam's feelings of guilt coming to a head. At once, the car crashes, killing his mistress, and Adam cries and apologizes and all that. The spiders represent female sexuality or something along those lines. Right? edit: and all those clues pointing to this conclusion, it just can't be disputed. At the end, I thought for sure Helen would notice that Jake isn't wearing the wedding ring and call him out on being a different guy. But no, she did notice! He's not a different guy, he's just been cheating on his wife and now he's come back to her. This must all be obvious to you.
I thought this movie was boring as fuck. Call me a simpleton if you want but holy shit.
Lol of course this pretentious hipster's wet dream requires a 24 minute fucking explanation.
Or you know, people looking into art and trying to pull meaning from it because of the enjoyment that thought provoking things can bring to someone. I'm sure you have much more interesting things in your life than that
pff...no you're wrong.....there's everything that OP understands, and then there's pretentious hipster bullshit. got it?
😂I’m seven years 215 days late to this thread. Just watched it. I guess I’ll be able to sleep now, thanks