Friday, April 11, 2014

SFF Selections 2014: Richard Ayoade's "The Double"

The Double * * * ½


     IT Crowd actor turned film-maker Richard Ayoade turns in his second directorial effort on the heels of official SFF selection Submarine's success with his deadpan Dostoevsky-inspired The Double. Jesse Eisenberg's Simon is easily the least noticed man on the planet. Working at quite possibly the worst-lit office of all time doing nondescript clerical work (either Tim Burton or a '40s-era private-eye seem primed to pop out of a cubicle at any given moment), in one scene he looks at a photograph of company-head "The Colonel" and it's notable that there's actually a reflection in the frame's glass. His own mother can't even pick him out in a television ad for his company, asking, "Which one was you?" Befuddled at how to reply, Simon bumbles, "I'm me!"

     Unnoticed and in solitude, nothing ever seems to go right for Simon (the elevator lights even flicker and the door sticks every time he enters it) and conditions only worsen when he tries to rectify anything (when he finally kicks the elevator, an alarm sounds). His days dour, Simon pines for Hannah (Jane Eyre's Mia Wasikowska). The back window of Simon's apartment faces hers and his nightly routine includes getting home, sitting down, and watching Hannah through his telescope. When she finds out, Hannah isn't even bothered by it: finding it "oddly reassuring". Hannah also works in the photo-copier room at Simon's office, where he constantly visits her due to poor luck with his ever-breaking printer. After a startling incident where Simon witnesses a man jump from Hannah's building through his telescope, Hannah says to Simon at the crime scene, "It's terrible being alone so much" and they go for coffee.

     Life seems ever so slightly better in Simon's eyes after coffee with Hannah, but it's really the calm before the storm. Cue James, also played by Jesse Eisenberg, who enters the work-force of Simon's office like a whirlwind of charisma. That Eisenberg can play both roles with ease and conviction while managing the stunning feat of creating chemistry and a palpable rapport with himself is incredible. Simon asks around, inquiring as to whether James reminds his co-workers of anyone. No one notices that James looks like Simon because no one notices Simon to begin with. One office-mate does finally pick up on their identical likenesses, but he blames the length of time it took him to perceive it on the fact he'd never paid much real attention to what Simon actually looks like. James is the living embodiment of everything Simon wants in his life: recognition as a person, attention, success at work, and the ability to get the girl... James has everything Simon has ever wanted -and wants to take what little he does have. 

     The world of The Double doesn't exist in reality but in a heightened version of itself that frames and amplifies Simon's journey with cinematic reference and tradition. Countless scenes theatrically bathed in Vertigo's green-light recall Hitchcock's tale of the woman whose lover yearned for her double rather than who she really was. And the back-window sequences that allow for fun Jesse Eisenberg on Jesse Eisenberg face-offs between voyeur and attention-strumpet echo of Hitch's Rear Window. Like in the stylized universe of Almodovar's Broken Embraces or as in those of modern noir, Ayoade's neon-lit sets and dead-pan camera-compositions work in tandem to aide and abed in bringing this deliciously dark comedy to life. The Double begins with a deadpan shot of a man, face obstructed (presumably Simon's double: James), telling Simon, "you're in my place" on an empty Subway car. The film that follows details his oft humorous journey to find his place in a world where there doesn't seem to be one for him.

No comments:

Post a Comment