9. Enemy
After their fantastic pairing in last year's top-notch thriller Prisoners, Jake Gyllenhaal re-teams with director Denis Villeneuve for Enemy, an extremely sinister thriller that plays out like the sort of thing David Lynch would make if he still had an interest in movies. Adam Bell (Gyllenhaal) is a college professor who rents a movie and notice an extra who appears to be his exact double. Adam becomes obsessed with tracking the actor, Anthony St. Claire (Gyllenhaal) down, and when he does, things start to get really messy. The two even share the same scars, and it's not long before the two end up swapping places, with Anthony hooking up with Adam's girlfriend Mary (Mélanie Laurent) and Adam with Anthony's pregnant wife Helen (Sarah Godon). Mary realises she's with the double and freaks out, but when Anthony drives her home, the car crashes and they're both presumably killed. However, when Helen realises she's not with her husband, she asks Adam to stay. Adam now seemingly assumes Anthony's life, but when he goes into the bedroom to talk to Helen, she has transformed into a giant tarantula, and makes a hissing noise, cowering from Adam. He sighs and the movie ends with no further explanation.
Theories: The movie is relatively recent, and so Enemy still needs to find its audience, but that hasn't stopped the theories from already spilling out online. What makes the movie so confusing is that it suggests a number of ideas, that Adam and Anthony might be long-lost twins, or that one of them might be imaginary, but then intentionally contradicts these ideas with other plot points, as though to deliberately tie itself in knots. Director Villeneuve has suggested that his own personal interpretation is that the movie is an exploration of the protagonist's subconscious. As for the giant spider at the end? Some have suggested it's a sexual metaphor (the idea of a female spider biting the head off a male lover after mating?), while there's even the belief that the entire movie is a metaphor for some sort of Invasion of the Body Snatchers-esque political subversion.
