MOVIE REVIEW: The Double (2013)

If a film can immerse you deeply in somebody else's life, it is doing something right. In the case of The Double, I felt like I was literally breathing the same air as these characters, looking out into the unforgiving blackness of the world and feeling the same sense of confusion, anguish and disillusionment. This film tells the story of how people don't have to die to become ghosts, and that we don't have to do anything wrong to be looked upon as such. I personally found it incredibly moving to observe such an innocent character go through this unimaginable torment with no real way out of the abyss.

I have not read the original Dostoyevsky novel that this was adapted from, but everything about The Double reminded me of Franz Kafka's The Trial, as well as many ideas explored by Orwell and other 19th and 20th century writers. The film is bleak from the first frame, and indeed we do not get a single ray of sunlight for the entire thing. The opening scene felt like a nightmare, giving us a taste of the deeply troubling world that we are about to inhabit. Simon James is someone most of us can relate to in one way or another - he is essentially an introverted overthinker in a world that is only really interested in the superfluous. By contrast, his doppelgänger - James Simon, plays the charismatic charmer, somebody who everybody likes mainly because he knows how to manipulate them. In the middle of the two is Hannah, a character I expected would simply be the love interest, but was happy to see ends up being much more than that.

The main theme that I picked up on in The Double was conformity. As James begins to work in the same government office as Simon, we see that despite how different he is, he is still trying to integrate into the same system and impress the same people. Simon quickly notices that James is doing a much better job at both of these things simply by acting in a much more carefree way. One of the most interesting passages in the film for me was watching James trying to teach Simon how to to impress Hannah, who like everyone else falls for James and brushes Simon to one side. To me this very cleverly highlighted how, when we are living under such a system, we tend to undervalue traits like honesty and kindness and overvalue manipulative traits that can be masked by confidence. We see that Simon wants to be like James and Hannah wants to be with James, even though we know that Simon is the one who genuinely cares about her. The use of two characters who look identical was very effective in framing these social biases because it takes physical appearance out of the equation, pitting these two opposites against each other and leaving the audience, as well as the characters in the film, to make their own minds up about what is going on.

The story becomes incredibly sad when James' true intentions become more clear. He uses his social leverage to blackmail Simon at work and starts a relationship with Hannah, who he cheats on with another girl in the room directly above hers. Socially ostracised, Simon has no power to help Hannah, and what he does do just ends up hurting her more. With every scene in The Double, director Ricard Ayoade manages to make Simon's life seem increasingly worthless and invisible, to the point in which he is told that he no longer exists. At times I found myself wondering what point the film was trying to make - was it building to the inevitable breaking point in which Simon must stand up to this Kafkian dystopia that he is living in, or moving towards a helpless end in which he simply surrenders to it? The third act leaves this question open-ended, yet it is clear that Simon has learned one thing - to be decisive. In no way is it a happy ending, yet for the first time a little bit of truth prevails, leaving me quite moved by the whole thing.

I never thought I would like a Jesse Eisenberg performance this much, let alone like him as two characters in the same film. I think much of it is thanks to the script and direction he was given, which allowed him to play the two roles with a sense of clarity but also nuance. It reminded me very much of Sam Rockwell playing both himself and his clone in Moon, a film I also love for similar reasons. The rest of the performances in The Double were also good, but rightfully the majority of the emphasis is put on Eisenberg and his dialogue. I feel like many of the criticisms of this film may well be lodged at the cinematography, which I understand might come across as over the top to some audiences. Personally I loved it. The decision to shoot everything in low light sums up the tone of everything else in the film, and it accurately depicted the cold worlds that I had imagined in my mind whilst reading 1984 and The Trial a few years ago. The score certainly added to the suspense and was easily one of my favourite things about the movie, but if anything I would have liked to have heard slightly more of it, especially in the first two acts. Overall, the film was very solid on a technical level, with a clear visual style that made the movie play out in an almost dream like reality.

The Double has me wanting to see more of Ayoade's films. It moved me on a personal level, but perhaps more importantly has made me think about how I look at people, even those close to me. We do not live in the world that The Double depicts just yet, however I think there are things in it that most of us will recognise to a much lesser degree. Our need to conform to social ideals that we do not truly understand, and our tendency to judge those who do not fit this mould. This film shows the darkest side of our nature, and acts as a stark reminder that we must try to see things as they truly are instead of simply how they appear.

Acting: 85
Narrative: 90
Visuals: 90
Music: 80

Overall: 85/100