What Does The Ending Of Enemy Really Mean?

7. Do Adam & Anthony Both Exist?

The key to unlocking the mysteries at the core of Enemy's narrative lie in answering one question once and for all: are Adam and Anthony actual, physical doppelgängers of one another or not?

Firstly, it's interesting to note that the two men are never seen in the same place at the same time by any other character, and in the few scenes where they share the screen, they're entirely alone.

Even after the two first meet up and Adam hurriedly leaves in a panic, Anthony drives past him on the freeway but his motorcycle helmet covers his face, making it entirely possible that Adam is, indeed, merely projecting Anthony as a fabrication of his own mind.

Furthermore, when Helen sees Adam at the university and immediately calls Anthony on her phone, Anthony doesn't answer the phone until Adam is out of view, further cementing the ambiguity of whether Adam truly has a double or not.

As such, the film's visual language - not to mention its thematic content - seems to have Denis Villeneuve suggesting that there is only one actual, physical person on Earth played by Jake Gyllenhaal, which can of course only mean one thing...