Analysis
A review in Indiewire compared the film to Christopher Nolan's Memento, and called it an "engrossing Kafka-eque[sic] mindfuck cum provocative psychological thriller" that "doesn't reveal itself easily".[9] Both director Villeneuve and leading actor Gyllenhaal spoke of their desire to make the film a challenging exploration of the subconscious.[10][11][12] To Villeneuve, Enemy is ultimately about repetition: the question of how to live and learn without repeating the same mistakes.[10]
Regarding the two physically identical characters: "You don't know if they are two in reality, or maybe from a subconscious point of view, there's just one," said Villeneuve. "It's maybe two sides of the same persona … or a fantastic event where you see another [self]."[10] Gyllenhaal says that Enemy is "about a man who is married, his wife is pregnant, and he's having an affair. He has to figure himself out before he can commit to life as an adult."[11]
Forrest Wickman of Slate points out that the opening line of the film, "Chaos is order yet undeciphered" is from a line from José Saramago's The Double, the novel on which the film is based. Wickman suggests that Enemy is "a parable about what it's like to live under a totalitarian state without knowing it," and adds that the central irony is that even though the main character is an expert on the ways of totalitarian governments, he does not see the web that's overtaken the city until he is already stuck in it. To Wickman, Enemy suggests that this tendency to create totalitarian regimes is part of human nature, that it comes from within us;[13] he cites Villeneuve's comment: "Sometimes you have compulsions that you can't control coming from the subconscious ... they are the dictator inside ourselves."[13]
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