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Cinema Review: The Double

Lorna Irvine reviews 'a cinematic experience that will haunt and delight you'.

A study of paranoia and longing bathed in industrial steel and jarring amber, Richard Ayoade's second feature film, the follow-up to 2011's brilliant Submarine , feels like a cohesive partner- albeit a darker one. After all, this adaptation of The Double, co-written with Avi Corinne, is based on a Dostoevsky novella.

Gentle, shy protagonist Simon (a wonderfully nuanced Jesse Eisenberg) is so nondescript that he has to tell security at his office who he is on a daily basis. It cannot be a coincidence that his character is not dissimilar to the lead Oliver in Submarine and a kind of extension of Ayoade's own unassuming personality.This rigmarole grinds Simon down to the point of depression, where, somewhat unsettlingly, the only pleasure he can find is spying on attractive neighbour Hannah, also his work colleague, through a telescope. When a suicide occurs across the rooftops from Simon's flat, he is brought together with Hannah, who does not seem too keen on him.

Into his dystopian nightmare workplace walks Simon's obnoxious doppelganger James, a man so full of swaggering hubris that his every utterance is considered acceptable, no matter how sexist or homophobic, by random women he picks up in bars and his new co-workers. He has stolen Simon's identity, his ideas and (of course) Hannah and yet nobody seems to mind, or even notice.

So far, so formulaic, and there are many scenes reminiscent of European cinema (such as Claude Chabrol's Le Boucher and Francois Truffaut's Les 400 Coups) whom Ayoade has long acknowledged as an influence, but there is a sustained tension which is all his own and motifs recognisable from his debut- not least in isolating characters in darkness as a letter is read out, or casting Craig Roberts, Yasmin Paige, Noah Taylor and Sally Hawkins again in minor roles, and a clowning Paddy Considine in an eighties TV show which Simon watches to escape the banality of his lonely existence.

Other typically Ayoade quirks are a lounge band comprised entirely of pensioners; J Mascis of grunge slackers Dinosaur Jr as a janitor and the kitsch Japanese pop in the soundtrack. Visually too, there is a sense of timelessness, retro styling that could be set in the present day or the sixties, reinstating the tone of being 'other'.

The only real weakness is in Hannah who, although well portrayed by Mia Wasikowska, is woefully under-written and floats around prettily, or self-harms in uncomfortable close-up. The Betty Blue ‘troubled beauty' trope is a little reductive and dated these days, non?

However, as a whole the insidious horror, sadness and unexpected bursts of sound keep the audience on their toes, and while not entirely a triumph, it is well-paced, poignant and with moments of graceful beauty. A cinematic experience that will haunt and delight you. Ayoade is a promising auteur, indeed.

Tags: cinema

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