Have you ever been jealous of yourself? Yeah. I didn’t think so. What if the new guy at
work was identical to you in every way, except better. Better with work, better with women,
and even better with his own mother. It’s like you are taking over your own life from
yourself. Confusing, I know… Well that’s what happens in 2013’s The Double.
While I may give you my opinion on the film here, that’s no substitute for experiencing
it yourself. Links to the movie are in the description as well.
As the title screen appears and disappears without any fanfare, we open up to Simon falling
asleep on the subway, only to be woken up by a stranger telling him he’s in his spot.
With an entire subway car of empty seats, even the shy Simon looked like he wanted to
question the man.
As he looks into the next subway car, he sees the face of Hannah. An awesome bit of foreshadowing
here, Hannah is actually a palindrome, which means it’s spelled the same backwards. Perfect
to represent the film’s theme of double. His daydream is quickly interrupted when the
subway comes to a stop, and people begin loading his car with all sorts of boxes.
Poor guy can’t catch a break. I already feel bad for him. Even as he catches up to
Hannah, he still only gets within throwing distance before something else gets in the
way.
After an amusingly sad interaction with a gate guard, he is finally allowed access to
his work location. I’m not entirely sure if this is supposed to be set in the past
or an insanely bleak future, but either way...this feels soul crushing...
Simon sits at his desk pondering his future while he looks around at all of the elderly
coworkers that are slowly draining their life away. As he gets up and takes a short walk
around his office floor, he comes across a picture of the office from the past. As he
looks back over the office, he realizes that it hasn’t changed in the slightest bit.
Depressing!
As he follows his high strung boss, he finds out in the most inconvenient way possible
that he’s going to be mentoring his boss’ slacker daughter. I’d just quit at this
point.
As Simon returns to his work, we catch a glimpse of his genius way to talk to the girl he likes.
Simon is hopeless, and it shows terribly.
Simon finishes his shift with a tense phone conversation with his mother, who apparently
has no faith in him at all. As he tries to leave for the day, even the elevator plays
tricks on him. As Simon spends time with his mother in the home she’s been placed in,
we find out a little more about who Simon works for while a commercial plays with him
in it. Even his own mother pretends not to know which person in the commercial is him.
At least we don’t have to question what his mother thinks about him.
As Simon leaves to return to his own home, we see that his own apartment is barely more
than a studio apartment. The more I watch, the more I feel like this is actually set
in an alternate timeline in the ’80s. But where the ’80s sucked instead of whatever
actually happened.
To top it all off, he’s a creeper! He turns off his TV to go over to the telescope he
has set up at his window, which is fixated on Hannah’s window across the way. It would
almost be romantic if it wasn’t so creepy. While he’s creeping on her, he notices that
she throws some pieces of paper away down the community trash chute. He runs over and
collects the pieces out of the trash!
When he looks through his telescope after coming back home, he notices a man standing
outside on the ledge, spying back to him with a pair of binoculars. Then suddenly… Soon
after, the police arrive to collect the body.
Somehow, even the police questioning him on the experience feels as though he’s being
interrogated instead of questioned. Well, hopefully, that’s not foreshadowing at its
finest.
While he stands there pondering the suicide, Hannah walks up behind him and starts asking
him about the encounter. This prompts him to realize that life as a loner is terrible.
So he asks her to go to dinner with him. The two of them go to the local cafe.
As he takes a chance to reach for her hand, he gets right next to her hand before she
pulls him out of his trance. Simon is never going to get the girl at this rate. Hannah
continues on her rant of one of her exchanges with the man that killed himself. As she gets
more worked up, it becomes a little obvious to Simon that her exchange caused the man
to feel lonely enough to jump from the ledge.
Later on, this poor man exchanges his TV, which is his one belonging, for a pair of
earrings for Hannah! Of course, something goes wrong. When he gets to the entrance to
the mandatory work ball, it turns out he’s not on the guest list. He’s got more determination
than I’ve ever had. I’ll give him that.
Simon is left with finding an alternative route of sneaking in. As he approaches Hannah,
the gate guard stops him! Of all people! So close!
As he is escorted from the premises, he is walked right by the owner of the company,
which leaves a terrible first impression on his boss. Feeling defeated, Simon marches
back to the courtyard outside his apartment where he sees the shadow of a familiar man
cross by.
When he makes it up to his apartment, he looks through his telescope to the apartment across
the way. He gets a glimpse of the figure just in time before the blinds get shut. Honestly,
with his crap luck with everything else in his life, there’s nothing that would surprise
me at this point.
The next day, Simon makes it to the elevator just in time to ride up to work with Hannah.
A short and awkward conversation later, and Simon sets off the alarm which gets him detained.
And after being detained, he’s written up and his ID is corrupted. We shouldn’t be
surprised by any bad thing that happens to Simon at this point. Expect the worst and
be happily surprised when it doesn’t happen.
While Simon continues to mentor his boss’ daughter, an announcement begins at the front
of the office about a new employee being transferred from a sister company. Simon pushes his way
to the front so he can see who it is, but when he gets to the front, he can’t believe
his eyes.
I’d probably pass out too. After coming to, he lays eyes on the new employee, James,
who’s demeanor, you can already tell, is completely opposite of Simon.
After Simon asks his one work friend if James reminds him of anyone, he gets some pretty
harsh truths from him. Well I suppose if your one friend is telling you that, then there
must be some truth to it.
As Simon and James leave work together, somehow they end up going to the same cafe as before
together as well. After an interaction with the waitress that shows the difference in
the two, the two of them actually head to a bar next, where James immediately starts
talking to some women by the pool tables.
You can already tell that Simon would’ve never done that because he’s literally sitting
at the bar, watching James from the sidelines with a worried expression on his face. After
James asks Simon which girl he wants, Simon becomes uneasy with the situation and gets
up to go to the bathroom where he bumps into a big guy on his way.
As Simon tries his best to weasel out of the situation, James decides to get involved once
the big guy gets a little more aggressive. I’m not going to lie. I'm even a little
jealous of how smooth James is.
As the two of them run away, they wind up on the subway, where Simon tells James about
Hannah. While Simon expresses his desire to reach out to Hannah, James tells Simon that
he has to go for it. Simon expresses how he feels so invisible and incapable of being
the man he wants to be.
Somehow, that conversation ends with Simon carrying an unconscious James off of the subway
and back to his apartment where he lays him down in his own bed. There’s probably nothing
creepier than tucking yourself into bed, only to go to your creeper telescope to spy on
the girl you love.
The next morning, Simon’s luck starts to turn around as he realizes that his friendship
with James comes with benefits. I would’ve taken that time to have some choice words
with that gate guard, but I guess it’s best not to press your luck.
Then a new plan becomes clear when James reminds Simon of a switching plan they apparently
came up with the night before. While Simon seemed as confused as I was when James said
they talked about it the night before, he reluctantly switches places with him and takes
his test.
In return, James babysits the boss’ daughter who gets a new taste of who she thinks is
Simon. When James doesn’t return to switch back, Simon becomes a little concerned about
what might be happening.
Soon after, Simon goes to see Hannah at her office and tries a bunch of advice that James
gave him, but it’s almost as though the fact that Simon is the one saying it means
no one will ever really see him. It’s almost a physical pain whenever Simon interacts with
Hannah. Or anyone for that matter.
Once they are all three on the subway together, James tells Simon to stick his tongue out
at her like a lizard. If this isn’t grade A pickup advice, then I don’t know what
is. Well I’ll be damned, that actually worked. I might just have to walk around sticking
my tongue out like a snake from now on.
Well Simon’s life has taken a magnificent turn. Or so we thought. After Hannah meets
Simon at the same cafe as before, it turns out that all she wants to do is talk to Simon
about James. After she tells Simon that she’s never met anyone like James, he obviously
gets a little stirred and confused by this.
It’s not too hard to process, seeing how this is the most forward Simon has been for
the entire film. Yet when he asks her what makes James unique, she can’t give him anything
other than the fact that you can just tell by looking at him.
Once Simon tells James about the encounter, James decides it’s a good idea for them
to switch again. So while they prepare for Simon’s date as James, James goes over a
lot of do’s and don’ts that make Simon unsure of himself. Well that’s a little
harsh.
Flash forward to their date, and Hannah already looks like she can tell it’s not James.
Simon rushes to the bathroom, where James is hiding out with a microphone and coaching
Simon along the way. Once Simon explains that he needs James to patch things up, they switch
positions again only for James to do too well at patching things up. James and Hannah share
a passionate kiss before leaving the restaurant.
This all causes Simon to get a little antsy. After he goes back to work, he rushes to Hannah’s
office where she is giggling with someone on the phone while ignoring Simon. Can anyone
say psychotic break incoming?
To top it all off, Simon finally gets the guts to take his work to the Colonel, who
owns the business. When he does, James pops out from around the corner, snatches Simon’s
work, and takes credit for it with the boss right in front of him.
No good was ever going to come from all of this. Later that night, James looks through
his telescope where he finds James’ room. It’s here that he sees James fooling around
with the boss’ daughter. In an attempt to foil James’s plans, Simon calls Hannah as
James and asks her to come up to his room. I know. It’s switching left and right now.
Once Hannah goes to his room, she is turned away, but the boss’ daughter is furious
and leaves as well. Simon thinks he’s won until… Well I’d feel like crap too.
In an attempt to nut up, Simon sits down with James and gives him a list of demands which
doesn’t go as planned. James then pulls out a polaroid of him and the boss’ daughter
and proceeds to blackmail him into giving him the key to Simon’s apartment for his
future rendezvous.
Suddenly, Hannah appears at Simon’s desk with a concern that James is doing things
with other girls. As she explains the words that James has told her, Simon realizes that
he took every word that Simon explained to him and used them in his stead.
As Simon’s irrational behavior continues, he can feel himself being taken farther from
Hannah, and he can feel James taking more control of his life. Then a huge twist in
the plot happens! Never saw that coming. It’s sad when even the computer forgets about you.
Once Simon gets wind of James stealing his biggest project yet, things take an even darker
turn as everyone turns against Simon. Look at that face! That’s the face of evil! It’s
perfect!
I know this is a tense, serious situation, but he just pulled a guy’s arm off. Did
you really think I could just blow over that? This is cinema gold.
Of course that confrontation ends in Simon being escorted to the subway by gate guard.
That guy needs a raise. Once Simon is home, he attempts to write a suicide note before
opening his window, but when he does so, he notices something wrong in Hannah’s room.
If I ever had to deal with a nurse like this, I’d probably lose my mind on top of what
had already happened. Once the doctor pulls Simon aside, he explains that Hannah has actually
had a miscarriage on top of everything. Also a side note, who is the doctor? This gate
guard needs a raise!!
Simon actually takes Hannah back to her apartment where she says that she will eventually try
again, and she thinks that Simon should try to kill himself. Has any of the treatment
Simon has dealt with really been necessary? I mean seriously. Even if he was a nobody,
would you waste these perfectly fine insults on nobody?
After Simon leaves, Hannah notices the earrings he had bought for her, and she looks through
a journal that Simon had kept of all of her trash pieces of paper. Yeah. I hope you feel
like crap. Or maybe just less creeped out by the guy.
Once Simon gets back to his apartment, he listens to a voicemail that explains poorly
that his mother has passed away. When he tries to attend the funeral, he finds that James
is already there and tries to turn what family he has left against him.
Oh look! A connection no one saw coming! Just kidding. Still cool though.
Suddenly the priest charges at Simon like a madman with a shovel and Simon falls down
in his mother’s grave. When he comes to, he is lying next to the grave, and his face
hurts where he struck James. When he makes his way back to Hannah’s apartment, he arrives
with a ferocity that puts James to shame.
When she answers the door, she knows exactly who he is, and things begin to click for every
character involved. She watches Simon march back to his apartment where he handcuffs James
to his bed. The tension created at this point is so palpable that you can’t help but be
involved in the story.
Well this is exciting. Someone is about to jump, Simon is holding a knife to his own
face, Hannah is walking around like a lost puppy. As Simon cuts his own face, it wakes
James up as his face is cut too. Simon stands out on the edge looking over the courtyard.
As James looks through Simon’s telescope, he sees Simon wave to him before he jumps.
Simon lands on an awning before making contact with the ground.
When he does, Hannah comes running out to be with him. In turn, he’s killed James
in his room. As he rides to the hospital, he closes his eyes and the credits roll.
Yet another abrupt, artistic ending that still works out quite well. Everything got wrapped
up quite nicely, and I guess you could call that a happy ending, but the beauty of it
is in the eyes of the beholder. What do you think?
I hope you enjoyed the video, and by all means, watch the film for yourself. There’s something
there for everyone. If you did like it, leave a like on the video and suggest what I should
watch next. Subscribe if you want to see more videos like this one, and I’ll see you in
the next video.