1. The Double
Grade: AMy Take: The Double was the very last film I saw at this year's Toronto Film Festival, and while I had been excited about the movie before the beginning of the festival, drowned out by the buzz of showy films like 12 Years a Slave and Gravity, The Double had slipped to the back of my mind. To my great surprise though, this final feature of my TIFF 2013 experience totally blew me away, ending the festival on the highest of notes. Directed by British comedian Richard Ayoade, whose work I am shamefully unfamiliar with (I have seen about two episodes of The IT Crowd and have still not seen his well reviewed feature film debut, Submarine), The Double is a superb take of Dostoevsky's surreal story of the same name. The basic premise of the tale is this: a wisp of man (Jessie Eisenberg) who works hard in a dead end job, but barely registers a blip on the radar of existence, is thrown for a loop when a man who is his exact physical replica (also Jessie Eisenberg) shows up at his office. Confident, brash, and assertive, this new doppelganger is everything the protagonist wishes he was, and when no one notices the striking similarity between the two men, the popular 2.0 version begins to literally subsume the protagonist's life. The film has been getting a lot of comparisons to Terry Gilliam's dystopian masterpiece Brazil, and for good reason since both take place in near-future bureaucracies, although the film's art direction is more reminiscent of the German Expressionists such as Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau (particularly The Last Laugh). The influence of the works of Charlie Kaufman and the Coen Brothers (A Serious Man especially comes to mind) can also be felt, but what makes The Double such a brilliant movie is while it is an amalgamation of all these things, it still manages to be a completely original vision. Ayoade also concocts the perfect blend of up-tempo dark comedy with a dash of film noir, letting the film's theme of identity play out within the proper cinematic structure of the film. Combine this with a terrific performance from Jessie Eisenberg, a hilarious script from Ayoade and Avi Kornine (Harmony Kornine's brother), and an awkward but wonderfully adroit soundtrack, and you have the ingredients for my favorite film at 2013's Toronto International Film Festival.
Oscar Prospects: At last year's Toronto Film Festival, my favorite film was Noah Baumbach's Frances Ha, and as of this moment, it still sits atop of my list of favorite films released in 2013. I was hopeful that the film would make a dent in the 2012 Oscar race, but when IFC Films announced they would not release the film until Spring 2013, I thought that Frances Ha would simply have to wait a year to become an awards season player. It's now October 2013 and at this point, it has become pretty clear that Frances Ha won't be receiving any Oscar nominations and I fear a strong sense of deja vu coming on when contemplating the Oscar chances of The Double. Unfortunately, this seems to be a new trend, where great indie films make the festival rounds in the Fall, see wide release the during Spring of the next year, and then are subsequently forgotten the following autumn when the big new, sexy-sleek prestige pictures get their release. It's a shame, but a good movie is a good movie, and even if The Double never sees the light of day with the Academy next year (it may have a slight chance at Best Adapted Screenplay), I have a strong feeling the movie will grow into a cult classic among cinephiles. If you have caught up with any of these movies, or are greatly anticipating the films that have yet to be released, let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.