What Does The Ending Of Enemy Really Mean?

6. Adam Is Suffering From Multiple Personality Disorder

There are persuasive clues throughout Enemy that Adam is in fact suffering from multiple personality disorder (aka dissociative identity disorder), and Anthony is merely a competing personality in his mind.

First off, there's the fact that both men are physically identical, not merely both resembling Jake Gyllenhaal, but both sporting the exact same beard - amusingly, Anthony debates shaving it off but doesn't - and bearing the same scar on their bodies.

There's also far more convincing proof elsewhere: both Adam and Anthony seem to possess the very same picture of themselves. Adam's version is torn, but he later discovers a complete version in Anthony's house, which also features Helen.

There are numerous references to Anthony's infidelity throughout the film, and after Anthony speaks to who he claims is Adam on the phone, Helen asks him, "Are you seeing her?" This could theoretically be referring to any of the women Anthony has presumably cheated with before, but it would also make a ton of sense for it to be Mary.

Perhaps most pivotal, though, is Adam's meeting with his mother (Isabella Rossellini), which includes a number of blatant hints at Adam and Anthony being part of the same muddled, fractured psyche.

Firstly, she declares that he has "enough trouble sticking with one woman" (also true of Anthony), then she tells him to "quit that fantasy of being a third-rate movie actor" (also applicable to Anthony), and finally, though we hear Anthony talk about enjoying blueberries earlier in the movie, Adam insists he doesn't like them. His mother retorts, "Of course you do", again conflating these two apparent people together into one whole. Adam's mother is also quite insistent that he is her only child.

Moments later, Anthony can be seen rehearsing his "Did you f*** my wife?" speech into a mirror, as though quite literally having the conversation with himself and playing the scene out in his own mind. Even when we see Anthony confronting Adam about this, Adam calls him crazy and Anthony shouts back at him, "I'M f***ing crazy!?", almost as if to imply that THEY are crazy.

How plainly these instances are laid out before the viewer makes a compelling argument that Adam and Anthony are two personalities fighting for the same body. Quite which events throughout the film are real are up for debate, but it seems clear that in the very least, Adam and Helen actually exist and are probably married.