Review of The Double (2014) by Corneliu R — 07 Aug 2014

Dark, surreal, weird, funny and smart, The Double is like Fight Club written by Dostoyevsky and adapted into a movie set in a Brazil-inspired world, with a direction reminiscent of Wes Anderson's films.

Following up his excellent coming-of-age story Submarine, writer-director Richard Ayoade crafts a totally different film, but brilliant all the same. The story may leave you scratching your head at times, but don't bother too much looking for any rational explanations or plot twists here. It's a theatrical and metaphorical art-film down to its core, and once you let the bleak yet eerily humorous world draw you in, you're in for a mind-bendingly good time. Despite the praise he's been getting, I'm still not convinced about Jesse Eisenberg, though, as his whole Michael-Cera-esque, borderline autistic acting persona is getting overly repetitive and tiresome by now.

Overall, it's a good movie, definitely worth a watch, especially if enjoy theater plays posing as movies. Also worth watching Enemy, with Jake Gyllenhaal, for a more modern, somewhat down-to-Earth version of the premise from The Double.