9 Questions About The Jake Gyllenhaal Movie 'Enemy'

By Jodi Smith | Lists | August 3, 2018 |

By Jodi Smith | Lists | August 3, 2018 |

I am well aware that I am super late to the party in viewing the 2014 Jake Gyllenhaal doppelganger film Enemy. It’s available on Netflix’s streaming service right now, so I decided to watch it and see what the hell it was all about. I sat through that whole movie and I still don’t know what it is about. Perhaps you could assist me in unraveling director Denis Villeneuve’s non-linear tale of two (??) men?

SPOILERS…I think?

1. Just to get this out of the way, was anyone afraid during the opening scene that the spider was going into a lady garden? And then secretly relieved it was a squish fetish?

2. Were there really two different men or was it one man with a Split kind of thing happening? Yes, Adam and Anthony speak on the phone, but no one witnesses it either time. Is it possible that Adathony is living two lives and keeps no memories of the separate personalities of Adam and Anthony unless he is “in character” as one of them?

3. What the fuck is with the spiders? I’ve read about them as visual representations of femininity, but I still don’t get WHY there are spiders in this movie. Do they represent the tangled web being weaved by the double life of Adathony?

4. If the spiders are a more literal representation of spinning a web of lies, is the first scene actually the last scene chronologically, signalling the change from Anthony to Adam in the timeline?

5. The answer to most of these is no, because Anthony dies in a car crash with Mary at the end. So they have to be two separate people unless it took place in Adathony’s head as a way to kill off one of the personalities. Is that it?

6. I REALLY NEED ANSWERS ABOUT THE GIANT SPIDER WHERE HELEN USED TO BE IN THE ROOM AND THE NON-REACTION TO IT, KIDS.

7. Is Mother just bonkers too or does she know her son has another personality and humors him to keep his psyche intact? Does that explain why she said Adam loves blueberries when actually Anthony does? Does she forget which personality has which quirks? Because Adam’s apartment is not nice. It is a shithole UNLESS THAT MESSAGE HAPPENED AFTER ADAM TOOK OVER ANTHONY’S LIFE AND SHE VISITED WHEN HIS SPIDER-WIFE GAVE BIRTH.

8. Does anyone else hear cuckoo clocks and see dancing maracas with googly eyes?

9. Can someone tell me what the actual hell I watched? Please use small words and NO METAPHORS.