Back in 2010, British actor Richard Ayoade busted his directorial cherry with his debut feature, Submarine. It was a coming of age film that featured great performances, stylish directing, and a script that had wit to spare, but that was also kind of simple in its storytelling and that had a personality that could snarkily be compared to already existing works from directors like Hal Ashby or Wes Anderson. It was a strong debut, overall, but more than that, it was a promise of even greater things to come from a talented new director. Well, now Ayoade has released his second film, The Double, and while the film does take several steps forward in crafting and originality, it also unfortunately ends up being a lot more of a mixed bag overall than the comparatively modest Submarine.
The Double is a fairly abstract piece of work that gives the viewer a whole heap of new stimuli to digest, including saddling them with the task of figuring out the world that the story takes place in. It’s not the world we live in, to be sure, but it does resemble it in many ways. It’s a world that exists out of time—one that’s modern enough to include many of our technical advancements, but that seems to have come up with its own analog versions of all our digital doohickies. It’s one part steampunk, one part dystopian future, and one part an exaggerated interpretation of the mundanity of life lived inside a system, kind of like the stylized factory that Tom Hanks’ character worked at in the beginning of Joe Versus the Volcano. Our character here even manages to find tiny, warm-colored, tiki-themed breaks from his life of drudgery in this film, much like Hanks’ did in that movie. Could it be that The Double is the rare film with taste enough to be influenced by Joe Versus the Volcano?
Whether the resemblance is intentional or not, what’s clear is that both movies exist in worlds that are imaginative and fun to explore, and they both feature protagonists who exist as worn down, invisible cogs in a vast machine. The protagonist here is named Simon James (Jesse Eisenberg), an Average Joe who works at some sort of bleak government facility. Though he’s a bright fellow with some ideas on how to improve efficiency around the office, he’s also the meek sort of doormat whose boss won’t give him the time of day. Consequently, his only bit of daily pleasure comes when he makes an excuse to go down to the copy room and sneak a peek at the comely girl who works behind the counter (Mia Wasikowska). This routine seems to have been going on for a while as the film begins, but quickly it’s thrown into upheaval with the arrival of a new (old?) face to the office, a confident and outgoing man named James Simon (Jesse Eisenberg), who not only inexplicably shares our protagonist’s face, but who is soon pitching his same million dollar ideas to the boss and taking his crush out on passion-filled dinner dates. The horror. The hell?
What The Double lacks in straightforward, realist storytelling, it more than makes up for in thematic depth. Not only is this a story about the traumas of being invisible and inconsequential, it’s also an escapist fantasy that takes a look at what it would be like if suddenly you could shake off all of your hangups and fears and begin living the life that you’ve always wanted. When James appears, it’s not just an Invasion of the Body Snatchers-type ordeal that Simon goes through, where he has to be worried about being replaced by a more perfect, more phony version of himself, there’s also something of a Fight Club element to the proceedings, where he meets a character who represents all of his repressed id come to life, who he is then able to live vicariously through. It causes a tension to run through the film, where you’re not sure if Simon is pitiable for his weakness, or relatable for his humility, and whether James is commendable for his forcefulness, or contemptible for the way he takes what he wants with no thought for others. How you respond to the story could work as a decent litmus test for whether or not you’re a jerk.
While Eisenberg and Wasikowska both give strong performances, and the script Ayoade adapted from a Fyodor Dostoevsky novella provides a bit of intrigue, the real reason one might want to check out The Double is to appreciate Ayoade’s craftwork as a director. The production design on these drab offices, the drab apartment that Simon lives in, the drab diner where he eats, and the clunky machines he fights with every day in order to get his work done is striking and imaginative. The photography is gorgeous to look at, and always mindful of whose face you can see, whose is obscured, and whose is being lingered on. All of these artistic touches add up to a pretty interesting watch. The problem with that is interesting doesn’t always equal entertaining. While The Double always holds your attention, it never goes as far as to delight. The pacing of the film is just too slow for it not to feel plodding, and the world it creates is just too surreal for it to create any real stakes. The story is relatable, but only on an intellectual level, after you start breaking down the thematics later on. Fans of Ayoade’s dry humor will likely find stuff to laugh at throughout, but most viewers will be left wondering why the film has so little dialogue and such long stretches of silence. There’s a ton of talent on display here, and a handful of real standout moments, but taken as a whole the film can be something of a bore.
One thing that’s thoroughly delightful though is the retro-futuristic action show that Simon watches on television in order to get a momentary escape from the anonymous drudgery of his daily existence. We only get brief glimpses of it, but it seems to be something of a cross between a cop show and Flash Gordon, and even just those little glimpses are wildly entertaining. If, for his next project, Ayoade made something a little less stuffy and intellectual and instead did something exploitive and silly like this, you wouldn’t hear me complaining. Whatever he happens to do next will almost certainly be worth a look though. His first two features have put more than enough innovative and capable filmmaking on display to assure us of that.
