Richard Ayoade is well on his way to becoming a Renaissance man: not only has he starred in hit sitcoms like The IT Crowd, he has now directed his second feature film. His debut, Submarine, was a critical success. Roger Ebert gave it a positive review, and the movie has an 87% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Ayoade's second outing is The Double, and while it's a bit too dark to be very fun, it's still a fine second outing.
The Double is a doppelganger story"”the classic trope of myth and fairy tale reimagined by Dostoevsky in his tragically psychological style. Ayoade's adaptation updates the main character from Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin to the much easier Simon James (Jesse Eisenberg). The plot hits the same major turning points, though. Simon works in a dystopian, bureaucratic horror-world. He is a nervous, shy, awkward, toadying lackey without the courage to ever confront his rude waitress or the appealing girl next door (Mia Wasikowska).
Things get topsy-turvy when James Simon, a new employee, shows up to work one day"”he's the exact lookalike of Simon James. Only more better looking, more confident with the ladies, and totally willing to pawn off Simon's work ideas as his own.
And as in all of these stories"¦ONLY ONE CAN SURVIVE!
Ayoade paints a bleak, dismal world"”with a touch of dark humor to pull us back from the void. The bare, sparse apartment quarters, the sheer mind-numbing nature of bureaucratic work, and the frustration of red tape and regulations all stab the hearts of viewers. He also riffs on the doppelganger myth a little more earnestly than Denis Villeneuve's competition film The Enemy. Ayoade deserves applause for not relying on arcane epistemology instead of good writing and structure.
Eisenberg stabs our hearts as well"”he almost plays his role too well, as we don't end up finding Simon James sympathetic or someone to root for in any way. An easy reply to that would be, "Of course you would say that, with your Hollywood-centric love of heroic and badass protagonists." And of course, you'd be correct. But while we don't need our characters to be saving cats all over the place, there needs to be something. The unlikable Llewyn in Inside Llewyn Davis was funny, for example.
The last thing to note is that the always enjoyable Wallace Shawn has a characteristically amazing supporting role as Simon's cantankerous boss, Mr. Papadopalous. Always a treat to see Mr. Wallace work.
All in all, The Double was a successful second outing for Ayoade. He seems to have set out to capture Dostoevsky's Russian psychological bleakness with a bit of a whimsical twist, and by those standards he has certainly done well.
As both of his films have been adaptations so far, though, it would be interesting to see him write his next film. Here's hoping Ayoade continues to prove himself a Renaissance man.
