Explaining the ending of the Denis Villeneuve movie ‘Enemy’
It’s hard to believe Denis Villeneuve only made his Hollywood directorial a decade ago, with the filmmaker in the midst of an incredible hot streak that’s seen him become established as one of the industry’s foremost purveyors of thematically rich and visually dazzling spectacle on a grand scale.
Showcasing the range of his talents, Villeneuve’s three Academy Award nominations have come in three separate categories, with one apiece for ‘Best Director’, ‘Best Picture’, and ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’. In total, his filmography has gathered 28 Oscar nods and nine wins, with six of his last seven films securing at least one nomination. However, Enemy is the only one of his features since 2009’s Polytechnique that missed out completely.
That doesn’t make it one of his lesser credits, though, with the surrealist psychological thriller enrapturing viewers with its Kafkaesque descent into madness. Jake Gyllenhaal pulls double duty as Adam Bell and Anthony Claire, two physically identical men who couldn’t be more different on every other level.
The final moments of Enemy have been endlessly debated and dissected, and with Villeneuve refusing to entertain the notion of there being a definitive answer, it remains as entirely open to interpretation as it was in 2013. And yet, it continues to confound and fascinate in equal measure.
History professor Adam and actor Anthony decide to swap places for a night for the express purpose of allowing the latter to have sex with the former’s girlfriend after accusing his doppelganger of sleeping with his own wife. The subsequent scenes play out at the same time, as Adam beds Anthony’s wife while his own spouse becomes distressed upon seeing the mark left by Anthony’s wedding ring.
Anthony and Mélanie Laurent’s Mary are ultimately killed in a car crash, with an ominous spiderweb being created in the cracked glass that obscures his visage. The next day, Adam finds an envelope with a mysterious key, telling Helen he’s heading out for the night – presumably to Anthony’s favourite sex club with the door the key unlocks – before she’s suddenly realised on-screen as a gigantic spider. Not literally, of course, but as a figurative manifestation of the web has consumed all of their lives since the lookalikes first crossed paths.
It also indicates that there’s never been an Anthony, with the extension of Adam’s persona being the version of him that indulges in the worst habits he fought to suppress as he embarked on what the standard ideal of personal and professional happiness is supposed to be. A ripped photo showing Gyllenhaal with Helen offers the greatest evidence having previously been obscured, leaving the viewer to draw their own conclusion of when, where, and how the lines are being blurred, further pointing towards neither Anthony, Mary, nor their “fatal” car crash having ever existed at all.
As for the spiders, they can be viewed as metaphors for the complications of commitment. Spider-Helen brings order to Adam’s existence even though he’s taking over someone else’s life, and mirroring the arachnid being squished in the opening scene; things will continue to spiral if he opts to distance himself from her even further.
Everybody has the potential to be their own worst enemy, and while the majority of people wouldn’t be struck with that notion when hallucinating their partner metamorphosising into a hulking eight-legged creature, in the twisted and distinctly off-kilter world of Enemy, it underlines one of the film’s many recurring themes of being tangled in a web that only the person who got themselves caught up in it in the first place can escape from.
