"Enemy drowns the mood in darkness as the film opens with a man walking down a long, dark corridor. We'll later recognize him as D-level actor Anthony Clair (Jake Gyllenhaal), but here he is just one of many men, gazing wide-eyed as women dance naked for their pleasure. The dance ends and two more women make an appearance, carrying a sterling silver tray, placing it on the floor and lifting the lid. A tarantula is revealed and it slowly crawls off the tray as one of the women moves to squash the arachnid under her heel. Cut to black...

A university professor, Adam Bell (also Gyllenhaal), is lecturing on chaos and dictators, their want for control and the repetitious nature of history itself. He goes home where he finds his girlfriend, Mary (Mélanie Laurent), waiting for him. They fuck*. He sleeps. He wakes. She's gone. He lectures on dictators. Rinse and repeat until one day at lunch a co-worker recommends a movie, something "cheerful". He goes home, sends Mary to bed alone and stays up to watch. The movie ends. He goes to bed. Forces himself on Mary who pushes him off. She leaves. He sleeps and wakes with a start.

A scene from the movie he'd just seen replayed in his dreams features the man he'll soon come to know as Anthony Clair, his exact look-a-like, and he can't get it out of his head. He must contact him. He does and the actor's wife (Sarah Gadon) answers. Recognizing his voice, she mistakes him for her husband, but as a result of Adam's stumbling she soon believes he's a jealous husband/boyfriend, calling to contact the man whose been sleeping with his wife/girlfriend. What is going on?"

*I apologize for the vulgarity, but to merely suggest they have "sex" would be to downplay the act and its effect on the film. It's not an act of love as much as it's a show of power.

7 no 10

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