In a dark and grimy future reminiscent of many a dystopian science fiction classic, Richard Ayoade unfurls his sophomore film. Everything is ordinary and non-descript, apart from retro technology that stands out like the symbol of the still functional but ill-fitting phenomenon it obviously is. The parallels with protagonist Simon James (Jesse Eisenberg, Now You See Me) are plain, and pronounced when his doppelganger James Simon (also Eisenberg) arrives; he works but he doesn’t belong.
Wallowing in what just might be a literal bureaucratic nightmare, Simon is quiet and conscientious, the former rendering him almost invisible to his colleague and object of affections, Hannah (Mia Wasikowska, Only Lovers Left Alive), and the latter going unrecognised by his boss, Mr. Papadopoulos (Wallace Shawn, Admission). James is confident and cavalier, instantly endearing himself to everyone in Simon’s life. At first, Simon is muted in his envy, but when James starts to overtly infiltrate his existence, he is unable to remain restrained.
For his first film as a director, Ayoade showed his bittersweet side in an astute coming-of-age comedy adaption of novel Submarine, an evident departure from his work as a performer on television. Here, he again eschews expectations and brings printed material to the screen, but with yet another vastly different source and tone. Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s 1846 novella The Double: A Petersburg Poem inspires his script, as co-written with and based on the screen story by Avi Korine (brother of Spring Breakers’ helmer Harmony Korine, and co-scribe of his sibling’s Mister Lonely), and enacted with a uniquely noir vibe and surreal touch.
Ayoade thanks David Cronenberg in the closing credits, and it is in his style he crafts his vision of The Double, an intricate, intelligent thriller of identity issues and existential dread that peddles a particular brand of introspective sci-fi quirk. The infamous horror auteur is the not the only apparent influence, with David Lynch’s affection for duplicity, Terry Gilliam’s puzzle-like prophecies, Roman Polanski’s permeating dread and even Aki Kaurismaki’s deadpan humour and Michel Gondry’s aesthetic playfulness seeping through. Indeed, an array of influences bubbles beneath the surface in an effort that does more than appropriate ideas or pay homage in execution; everything combines in an artful and insightful amalgam of distrust and dissension at the extreme.
Playing dual roles is a significant task for a leading actor, perhaps more so for one so often ascribed to a particular on-screen type; however Eisenberg is excellent in presenting what could be two halves of a normal personality’s whole. Seguing from begrudgingly compliant to brazenly assertive is a breeze, in a performance that perhaps indicates more about the dream-like narrative than it first suggests. It is completely understandable that Eisenberg monopolises the film, but Wasikowska offers a pleasant distraction as Simon’s kindred spirit more enamoured with James’ bravado. Brief appearances from key Submarine cast members Craig Roberts, Yasmin Paige, Noah Taylor and Sally Hawkins, and The IT Crowd co-stars Chris O’Dowd and Christopher Morris, are worked in, a treat for fans of Ayoade’s complete oeuvre.
It is the constant inclusion of those distinctive flourishes – affectionate appropriations of beloved works, winking allusions to the filmmaker’s own legacy in the staging and a selection of sight gags, recognisable faces peering through in the background – that gives the feature vitality beyond its finessed but familiar content, and that’s not to the detriment of what remains a beautifully bleak and uncompromisingly idiosyncratic rendering of the story. Moodiness and gloominess never looked so eccentrically textured, nor so blackly farcical. The malaise of purpose and being has rarely inspired such exquisite imagery. Ayoade’s talents hadn’t found an outlet as wryly acerbic and rhythmically attuned as The Double until now.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
The Double
Director: Richard Ayoade
UK, 2013, 93 mins
Release date: May 8
Distributor: Madman
Rated: M
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