The Double
Jesse Eisenberg and Mia Wasikowska star in this comedy and existential nightmare, based on the Dostoevsky novella, about a man who finds his life being usurped by his doppelganger... From actor/writer/director Richard Ayoade, his second feature after 2010's Submarine. Chris O'Dowd, Ayoade's co-star from The IT Crowd, also features.
"'You're in my place'. So begins meek Simon's descent into a nightmare while on his way to work. Simon is referring to his usual seat on the subway, but it's a phrase with worrying echoes. Because the man occupying Simon's seat looks exactly like him: a double. Ayoade updates the nineteenth-century Russian story to explore timeless anxieties about who we really are. When Simon (Eisenberg) gets to work he finds that this double has usurped his tenuous position in the company. Routinely humiliated by his boss (Wallace Shawn), the neurotic Simon now has to deal with a doppelgänger that is everything he isn't: confident, charming, successful, superficial." (Toronto International Film Festival)
2014Rating: M, Mature themes and coarse language93 minsUK
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The Double / Reviews
Total Film
Shows the directorial skill – and daring – of a major player, even if it can’t quite escape being swallowed by its influences.
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The Guardian
Mirrors aspects of Gilliam, Gondry and the Coen brothers' Hudsucker Proxy... Ayoade uses sound rhythmically, builds farce and tragedy out of the simplest devices.
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Hollywood Reporter
Finds a man so unable to live his life that a twin-like stranger has to show up to do it for him... the heavily stylized film further demonstrates the actor's ability to create self-contained worlds behind the camera.
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Empire Magazine
Has enough individuality, imagination and idiosyncratic invention to identify it as a true original.
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