The Double
(2014)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.... More
"'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) Hide
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Directed by Richard Ayoade ('Submarine')
Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Mia Wasikowska, Chris O'Dowd, Sally Hawkins, Gemma Chan, Wallace Shawn, Cathy Moriarty, Paddy Considine, Craig Roberts, James Fox, Noah Taylor
Written by Richard Ayoade, Avi Korine (based on the novella by Fyodor Dostoevsky)
Flicks Review
BY Alex Casey Flicks Writer
The Double is a bold and stylised pairing of Ayoade and Dostoevsky. Jammed in a cramped mechanised workplace under more orange and blue lighting than you have ever seen in your life, Jesse Eisenberg is a skittish wee man who becomes even more skittish when his identical sass-pot shows up and starts Tyler Durden-ing his life.... More
Richard Ayoade uses the surrealist, borderline sci-fi scenario to skilfully unearth the very real struggle of forging an identity, or at least trying not to be a ghost. There are many hilarious gags and performances (the TV show within the film is spectacular), but the film is also full of devastatingly sad moments of loneliness that will leave you feeling like a wooden Pinocchio.Hide
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The Double
BY JackWallace superstar
The Press Reviews
84%
of critics recommend.
Rotten Tomatoes Score. More reviews on Rotten Tomatoes
Draws on cinema's rich history of paranoia, absorbing the lessons of Welles, Lynch, Gilliam, Polanski; even Charlie Kaufman. But this is no mere copy. It's a stark, comic original. Full Review
A rigid, one-joke movie that feels hard pressed to sustain any sort of momentum. Full Review
Mirrors aspects of Gilliam, Gondry and the Coen brothers' Hudsucker Proxy... Ayoade uses sound rhythmically, builds farce and tragedy out of the simplest devices. Full Review
Has enough individuality, imagination and idiosyncratic invention to identify it as a true original. Full Review
An effective Pinterest board of paranoia and alienation. Full Review
Shows the directorial skill – and daring – of a major player, even if it can’t quite escape being swallowed by its influences. Full Review
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. Full Review
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