50th Post! Netflix Review: The Double (2013)

So far early 2015 has been…..okay. A few bad movies here and there, but the good ones stand out even more because of it. That being said, there’s been a real lack of drawing power for me in the past few weeks, and with World of Warcraft dominating most of my down time I found myself struggling to keep up with my work. Luckily though I managed to break away yet again and watch a movie that actually popped up on my radar last year, a little film called The Double.

Plot Summary - Based on the novella of the same name by Theodore Dostoyevsky, Jesse Eisenberg plays both Simon James, a mild mannered office worker who is practically invisible to the world around him, and James Simon, a cocky confident who tries to usurp Simon by basically taking over his life, forcing Simon to drastic measures to try and take it back.

Pros - Eisenberg does great double duty and Simon and James, allowing him to really show off both the dramatic and comedic sides of his skills, especially in the scenes when the two talk to each other. Director Richard Ayoade also provides great direction in making the film have both funny and dramatic elements and putting both of them into a good balance. I’m also a really big fan of the atmosphere of the film as it manages to real capture both the loneliness that the characters feel as well as making the world around them seem depressing and empty.

Cons - The only real thing I think that some people might not like about it is it’s art house style approach to certain scenes. Also this film reminds me a lot of another film that came out around the same time called Enemy, not that either of those points are bad to me, I just bring them up as something people might not like about this movie.

Final Score - 10/10

I love this film, and even though it’s on Netflix I still might go out and get the DVD. It’s the kind of thing I’ve actually needed to see that will hopefully break me out of this funk I’ve been in lately.

Furious 7 comes out next week, I’ll probably go see if I can get all the Paul Walker jokes out of my system first but I know there’s one film playing that I’m a bit more eager to go and see first. I actually might do a review on it depending but until then I’ll see you folks at the movies.