52 Pick-Up # 38 – Enemy (2013)

Oh. Hey there.

What do you mean what am I doing? I'm working on this week's write up.

No, I didn't post it already. How could I post it already if I'm still working on it?

You saw me post the link? Okay, that's just not possible. Again, how could I link it if I'm still working on--

Okay, I'd be tempted to see how much further I could take this joke, but I feel like it would start becoming convoluted quickly and eventually lead to me making two different posts for this movie that would try to intersect and mostly just turn into a mess.

Was at least worth the set-up.

With that said, welcome back to 52 Pick Up. For those just joining in, this makes month 9 of a year long project to get in 52 first time watches and logging initial impressions of them as a way to keep up writing.

For this week, I'm continuing to dovetail off of two points from last week's entry. The first of these being that this is another title that was chosen as part of an intention to fill the gaps in a particular director's filmography. In this case, this makes a second gap filled in the work of Denis Villeneuve with his 2013 psychological thriller, Enemy.

As a pitch goes, this feels a bit more straightforward than the previous Villeneuve movie, which is funny given the actual execution is more elaborate, but I digress. Enemy starts by introducing us to Adam Bell (Jake Gyllenhaal, in one of two roles), a history professor in a fairly routine life. One day, a colleague making small talk recommends a movie to him. Despite saying he's not normally one for movies, Adam takes up the suggestion. As he watches, he becomes struck by the fact that one of the supporting actors looks like him. Exactly like him. What starts as a curiosity soon becomes an obsession as Adam soon finds himself trying to first find, then meet the actor (Anthony, again, also played by Gyllenhall.) Anthony is initially confused and repulsed by Adam, until he finally meets him face to face and the uncanny resemblance becomes too much to deny. Especially as the two seem to start feeling as though their existences may be overlapping.

Okay, maybe not AS straightforward as I was saying, but a doppleganger reveal is easier to sum up without giving too much way than the events of Incendies.

So, some of you may now be wondering what the other point mentioned above was for dovetailing off of last time. In this case, I'm now two for two on movies I've come away from feeling like I may need more time than the allotted week or so to really work out how I felt on this one. Just as a first impression goes, there's a lot I liked here: Villeneuve has a good sense of tone here, a strong cast (especially, again, Gyllenhaal on double duty), and there's a number of stylistic flourishes I respected from a presentation standpoint. I think part of what I'm still mulling over/unpacking with this goes to the ambiguity on display in the movie. 

Going off of the above mentioned style flourishes, there's a fair amount about this that is left unsaid. There are multiple ways one could read, for example, the mystery of Adam/Anthony, two individuals so physically similar as to even share certain scars. Further, there's a question of if there are truly two individuals or the single man living a double life. Adding to this is some of the striking visuals the movie employs with spiders and spider-like imagery around these two men (or possibly one man) lending some further food for thought that, I have to admit, I'm still turning over. In general, I rather like the fact the movie doesn't spell this out and leaves it as something to turn over. But, as I said, it also means I'm still gonna be thinking on this one for a bit past this general first impression.

As it is now, it's not the best I've seen from Villeneuve, but hey, in general I haven't seen him miss so far, so that's still not a bad place to be.

But, even as I let this one keep rolling in my brain, the project goes on. With one week left, September has one more title on deck, and once again, I'm addressing a gap in a director's work. This time, I'm addressing a loose end of Yorgos Lanthimos as I close out September with The Killing of a Sacred Deer.

From all reports, this also will help serve as a lead-in to October, and having rolled that one up? Ooooh, this has potential to be a fun month.

But, let's not get too far ahead.

Till next time with The Killing of a Sacred Deer.

The World's End (2013) – BONUS ROUND

 Okay. I admit it. The Invasion was an altogether lackluster entry to close out this series on. Not even in a fun cathartic way. Just a disappointing affair all around.

I was bracing for this and had planned a bonus entry for the end of this month. Sort of a palate cleanser and an extension of the old saying about not going to bed angry.

At the start, I was going to use this spot to give a shout-out to the recent movie Little Joe.  A shout out I will still give as preamble here anyway – it isn't quite a Body Snatchers-style movie, but it is one very genuinely inspired by the series.

Why am I not making the whole write-up about this, then?

Because damn – as I waded through the nihilism-heavy back end of The Invasion, I kept finding myself thinking of Edgar Wright's The World's End (a movie that Wright himself openly compared to Body Snatchers and similar movies of the 'comfy catastrophe' genre), and how, without explicitly going for it, it nailed the general thematic aspects of the Body Snatchers story much more effectively compared to the official remake.

...and, because, like most adults living in the year 2020,
I can't help but feel the best solution to disappointment is drinking.

In comparing to the other entries in the series, The World's End is – to me anyway – the Gallant to The Invasion's Goofus. Where the latter makes its changes to formula for reasons that ultimately don't feel like they're achieving anything, Wright's own pod equivalent – the robotic Blanks – thread in well with the two main themes Wright is addressing in the film.

Which is the other area where The World's End excels in this race. Not only does it make them work well with the story - in general, it feels like it has a much better grasp on the themes it's trying to convey.

First, we have a continuation of one of the themes from Wright's earlier Hot Fuzz – the continued criticism of gentrification. As our movie's heroes return to their old home town to find all the pubs redesigned with a downright eerie uniformity – to the point where even the beer descriptions read like a set script – one can see the obvious critique of modern mass marketing at play. It's even more overt when you read up on the behind the scenes – in some interviews, Wright's description of the Network (the intelligence behind the Blanks) describes them as a sort of intergalactic Starbucks. Not necessarily malicious, simply just propagating its brand, much like the pods - simply existing and doing what comes naturally to it.

The final act of the movie, in turn, plays like a sort of oddly comic riff on many of the earlier movies' debates between human and pod – humanity isn't championed in the eyes of the stoic higher intelligence by love or hope or art. Instead, humanity's champion is Gary King (Simon Pegg, in probably one of his best performances to date) a problem alcoholic who has spent much of the night prior to that confrontation coming to terms with the fact he has lived as a complete and utter human trainwreck since high school ended. His argument is brash, irrational, unapologetically profane, and, to that end, incredibly human.

Humanity's hero, everyone.

It's also part of where the other interesting variation on a theme comes from – the allure, and danger, of nostalgia. The entire reason Gary and his former friends wind up returning to their old stomping grounds is itself born out of Gary's desire to try to complete the famous pub crawl they all attempted and failed in their youth. For him, this is all an attempt at reliving a childhood that the rest of the group has since left behind (and, as he learns, ultimately never really existed.)

Enter the Blanks, which quite literally offer that past fantasy – not just to Gary, but the entire group. That promise of youth, old romances, and reliving past high school glories plays as a different take on the 'perfection' offered by the alien intelligence. That it offers it as a choice (albeit with a very stacked deck) does make the Network a bit more nuanced an antagonist than most iterations of the Pods, but at its core it is still much in the same vein.

It's an interesting two-step that would be right at home with the story's tendency to address the issues and concerns of the age it's taking place in – there is definitely more of a feeling of relevance to be had in Wright's shared themes of a sanitized corporate buyout or the lengths people go to pursue an idealized past that never was (personal or not) that has helped the film age to far more success than the muddled nihilism that the most recent mainline Body Snatchers brought to the table.

and on a lighter note, this just makes a great
callback to the iconic pod shriek.

It's a brother from another mother (father, technically), but damned if it doesn't feel right at home with the best this particular series has had to offer.

There. That's a note I can close this month out feeling a bit more satisfied with.

With that said, I hope you're all staying safe and sane this year (we're all gonna need it soon) and to you all I wish a Happy Halloween.

...I mean...

SHRIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKK