SPOILER DISCUSSION

1.There are only 4 named characters in the movie: Adam, Anthony, Helen(Sarah Gadon), and Mary. The only other meaningful character that we see and that get’s referenced is Adam’s mother, who is only referred to by her symbolic position.

Adam shares his name with the “first” man in one of the most popular creation myths. Adam’s partner, Eve, was created from one of Adam’s removed ribs. Both Adam and Anthony share this rib injury, which seems to confirm Adam’s role as a progenitor. Furthermore, both of them seek to find a sense of completion through the help of women.

Anthony’s name seems like a reference to Mark Anthony. He was a Roman general who helped bring about the transformation of Rome into an autocracy where power became limited among the triumvirate, which Anthony was part of. ^[1] Grant, M. (n.d.). Mark Antony. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved September 27, 2021, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mark-Antony-Roman-triumvir. Rome is mentioned twice in Adam’s early lectures as being a form of dictatorship that helped distract its populace with entertainment. Anthony’s role as a movie “star” would seem in line with entertainment and thus his role in the movie could be seen as both a gambit for control and a distraction. The questions become what is he trying to control and who is he distracting to get it?

Mary, Adam’s partner, shares her name with the Virgin Mary who gave birth to Jesus. Given Adam’s namesake’s role in genesis, the Judeo-Christian connection here doesn’t seem coincidence. Meanwhile, Helen’s, Anthony’s partner, name hearkens back to Helen of Troy, the woman whose kidnapping started the Trojan War. On top of juxtaposing with the image of Mary, both in terms of reference and in terms of relation to spider, Helen’s role as the “shared” sexual partner of both Adam and Anthony seems like a reference to her part in the duo’s psychological war.

2.Making sense of how the names work requires determining whether or not Adam and Anthony are separate or the same characters. I believe they are the same character and Anthony is just Adam’s ideal ego, an imaginary identification with what he aspires to be. It’s the image of what he wants to be, a movie star. Despite only starring in 3 films in minor roles, Adam becomes completely enamored by Anthony and even claims that he’s a huge fan of the actor’s work. This is in spite of the fact that the film shows us that Adam has to painstakingly rewind and pause for frames to even find his actor self. Anthony isn’t a big wig or a star. He’s a dream that hasn’t delivered.

This seems to confirm Adam’s mother’s words later, when she tells him to give up that third-rate actor fantasy. In his mind, being an actor would be able to solve whatever the nature of his trauma is, but as demonstrated by the horrific ending, the actor fantasy is unable to help him. Furthermore, his mother mentions that Adam is her only son and she has no other son, so the presence of another person that exists with such similarities seems far-fetched if treated as reality proper.

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The only time both Adam and Anthony are shown at the same time in the film is when the two of them confront one another in hotel room 221. Outside of that, both men are always in the view of someone else. The only time the movie leaves either of their perspectives is when it follows Helen as she tries to understand the nature of what’s going on. She finds Adam and is horrified by the fact that he doesn’t seem to know her, making her earlier accusations against Anthony foolhardy. When she calls Anthony, Adam disappears from frame and then Anthony responds. The scene is shot in one-take to reinforce the idea that one can only exist in a certain scenario.

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However, there are four moments when the film abruptly cuts from Adam to Anthony even though the two aren’t in the same vicinity. The first time is at the start of the film. The film cuts from a sullen Adam to Anthony going to the fantasy room. The seeming reason for this change is Adam’s mother calling and the presence of a pregnant Helen, a mother soon-to-be. In other words, the cause of the switch is the presence of mothers. Then Anthony watches a woman threaten to step on a spider.

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The second time the film cuts between the two is during the first dream sequence when Adam dreams about the scene in Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way and reveals to him the presence of his double. In other words, the dream reveals the connection between the two selves. Like the first moment, the connective tissue linking the selves are women. In particular, the dream features women who are attempting to court men wearing ties with webs, even from one another. In other words, the power dynamic can be read as a situation where one seeks to control all – an autocracy of sorts. The women are prey seeking to dictate a full control of the men walking around the webs they spin.

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The third time the phenomenon happens is when both Adam and Anthony think about the half spider-women walking down the hallway. The dream follows Helen telling Anthony about having met Adam. In other words, what incites the upside-down dream is Helen’s confrontation with the fantasy structure of the two selves. The moment Anthony/Adam is made to deal with the possibility of being “revealed”, the image of women becomes further corrupted as spider. The first dream has the spider’s presence stuck in only the clothing. The second dream has the spider’s presence literally manifesting in the form of a woman. This dream even starts upside down and its presence comes in at the 45 minute mark, the literal halfway point of the film, demonstrating that Adam’s fantasy has now started to truly unravel. This is demonstrated by the nature of the cut. The sequence is presented as Anthony’s dream at first and he wakes up during it, but Adam also wakes up. The façade of the fantasy is giving way as it’s revealing what it’s really about.

When Adam finally gets to the hotel, to finally meet Anthony, he sees a woman who is framed in such a way as to evoke the image of the woman from the dream. The movement of her holding a card in her hand, hearkens back to the idea of the club as well. Women hold the key to the “truth”. The focus on her legs is intentional is well (more on this later.)

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The fourth and final time the film flickers between Adam and Anthony is during the climax when Adam has sex with Helen and Anthony fails to have sex with Mary. They start to drive and leave the hotel room as Mary chastises Anthony for not being a man. At the same time, Adam cries as he and Mary “reconnect”. The feeling of sadness feels at odds with what should be a man reconnecting with his estranged wife, but it makes sense when the experience is seen of Adam crying that his fantasy could only end in failure. Anthony was unable to conquer the web. The camera slowly moves in on the crashed car hosting Anthony and Mary and reveals a web in the cracks of the window. The fantasy could not escape the web.

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On top of this, the film features two parallel “disintegration” sequences that feature Adam and Anthony as the subjects respectively. These scenes are each marked by four separate shots which are each separated for a moment by a black screen. The sound during these moments is synched up to the cuts – silence and presence intercutting between the play of image and blackness. The first of these sequences happens right after Adam talks to Helen and ends up feeling paranoid, as though his gambit will be revealed. The second sequence happens happens right after Anthony and Adam meet each other in the hotel room. Anthony gets home, tells Hellen he has dealt with Adam, and then expresses paranoia that the situation is devolving out of control. Both situations are about the two sides of the façade- Adam and Anthony – falling apart and revealing the truth fantasy seemingly provides escape from.

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The evidence many use to suggest that the characters are in fact separate from one another is the basis of Mary’s accusations that Anthony’s hands are different because of the presence of the marriage ring indentation, an indentation which is missing from Adam’s hands. However, the reveal can be seen as the culmination of a truth that Adam had already begun to realize.

From the start of the film, Villeneuve emphasizes both Adam and Anthony’s obsession with their hands. Anthony views the eroticized taming of the spider with his hands around his face like the creature, while Adam is shown to constantly place his hands on his face and fidget. The hands reveal a truth that he knows unconsciously but can’t bear to tell himself consciously. When Anthony and him compare hands, Adam freaks out entirely and cuts the meeting short. The presence of the hands proved to be too much, but Villeneuve doesn’t reveal why. It’s most likely because Adam saw the missing ring finger and slowly came to the conclusion that his attempt to run from responsibility was doomed to failure. Rather than deal with it, he ran away and tried to “give responsibility” back to Anthony. This is why their confrontation ends with Adam giving Anthony the key card back to the fantasy room. Mary is just confirming to Adam, from within his fantasy, that he can no longer run away from the responsibility.

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Finally, the way both Anthony and Adam relate to the apartment Helen resides in demonstrates the latter is the “real” one and the former is a projection. The photograph that Adam first uses to compare to Anthony earlier on is revealed in its full form when he finally comes back to Helen. It’s the same photograph which would be impossible for Anthony to have – a difference that cannot be explained in any other way. However, Villeneuve subtly demonstrates the duo’s relationship via their positioning with the living room lamp. Adam is the lamp and bulb and Anthony is the light. In other words, Adam is the source and Anthony is his projection.

3.If Anthony is part and parcel of Adam’s fantasy, the question becomes what the nature of the fantasy is. Everything seems to revolve around the spiders and the film stresses that they are intimately tied with women. The spider make its presence known at the start of the film in the room of fantasy, an event which happens after Adam is surrounded by his both his mother’s voicemail and the image of a pregnant Helen.

A group of men seem to greatly desire that a small spider get crushed by a woman wearing a pair of heels. A creature made up of 8 legs is being pursued by another creature’s leg which is wearing an object meant to accentuate its features and give it more “impact.” Given that the spider comes to become closely associated with women, this 1 leg to 8 leg comparison is just another manifestation of the woman to woman qua spider relationship the movie is establishing.

The webs continue to show up in the connections between buildings in the city and the railways connecting all of them. The spider’s influence can be felt in every stitch and fiber of the architecture. When the first dream sequence starts, the primary woman in the dream upsets another woman courting a man. This second woman is pursuing a man wearing a spider adorned tie. Webs are a form of control spiders can produce and women, being spider-like, are capable of achieving the same level of control.

The next time the spiders show up are in the shared dream sequence Anthony and Adam have of a woman being half spider. Now the connection is made fully apparent. Women are not spider-like. They can turn into spiders as well. Noticeably, this woman is shown still retaining human legs. The most distinctive features of the spider, the legs, are still hidden, as evidenced by Anthony’s continued appeal with the woman and Adam’s subsequent glances at the hotel worker who looks just like the spider-woman.

The next appearance of the spider is the biggest manifestation of the creature and shows it towering over the entire city. This moment comes right after Adam’s first and only engagement with his mother, the only important woman in the movie who is not named and is referred to only by her title. Even though this is her only scene, her presence is manifest in her constant phone calls throughout the film- she’s a constant presence who Adam can’t shake off. Importantly, enough, there’s no mention or appearance of any father figure. It’s all just the mother and child.

Adam relays his concerns about Anthony to his mother and asks for advice. First she tells him he doesn’t want advice, then she tells him to stick with only one woman, then she tells him to quit his fantasies of being a movie-star, and finally tells him Anthony doesn’t exist. Adam’s illusions are shattered as he’s forced to confront the “reality” of the situation. His private fantasies – having women on the side and being involved in movies – are not his at all. They’re related to pieces of advice his mother has given him. Despite, trying to avoid her presence in the form of her constant phone calls, even going so far as to google Anthony instead of picking up her call (investing more in the fantasy), she has been present and knowing the whole time. This shock is what prompts the appearance of the huge, seemingly omnipotent spider who walks around the city as if it’s just another one of its creations. This is the spider who has decorated the architecture with so many wires. This is the mother who Adam cannot escape. The one who knows all and controls all paths.

In this way, Anthony can be seen as an attempt at emulating this interpretation of the mother. Like the woman in Where There’s A Will There’s a Way, who seduces and is able to control every man around her, and the mother, who is capable of “knowing” all, Anthony, the representative for the drive to autocratic control, tries to seduce multiple women and maintain control of Adam’s situations. He’s an attempt to usurp the primacy of the spider in Adam’s world.

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However, even he is suspect to the spider’s unconscious formations. At a physical level, he keeps placing the ‘spider’ around his face via his fingers. This reaction takes place in the fantasy room, where the key symbol both he and Adam pursue, the heel, is presented as a tool capable of “fighting” back against the spider. However, as explained above, the heel is nothing more than a “disguise” for the spider. The 8-legged creature, transforms into an adornment for 1 leg – they’re two sides of a dice called women, but they’re taken as separate fantasy. The “ideal” women can be saved if Adam/Anthony is “good” enough and can find a woman with the correct “heel”, one capable of stopping the spider.

This is why both Adam and Anthony obsess over Helen and Mary’s heels respectively. The former finds it in Helen’s closet, while the latter stalks Mary and then very visibly shows enjoyment when looking down her leg into the heel. This is the nature of Anthony’s “promise” to Anthony, where he claimed he’d take Mary out for a night, then return her and leave Adam’s life forever. He will conquer the “pure” mother and bring her back to Adam. However, this is not the case.

Despite taking Mary to the same hotel room where earlier he was able to dominate Adam, Anthony finds himself unable to do the same here. Far from being able to tame the spider, Adam loses both the “ideal” women in Mary, who would be able to save them him from his mother qua spider, and is forced once again to deal with the looming topic of motherhood.

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When he wakes up the day after Anthony and Mary are dead (the fantasy squashed) and he and Helen have become intimate once again, he finds the hidden envelope again. As he decides to investigate the location of the envelope, the room of fantasy, he once again starts to “split” because of the mirror. His attempt to enter the fantasy again is another go at making a “better” Anthony. Helen, who had previously been shown bathing in the house, is nowhere in sight but calls out to Adam and informs him that his mother has called once again. Even though Helen is “Anthony’s” wife, she’s aware of Adam’s mother who is able to find her son even though she shouldn’t be able to. This is not only confirmation that Adam and Anthony are one, the latter is just the formers projection, but also the sign of the mother coming in once more. As Adam goes to leave Helen (once again), he walks in on her having fully transformed into a spider covering the whole room. No matter what he does, he’ll never be able to control the spider.

4.In this way, the film can be seen as the Adam’s “documentary” of his own psychic disintegration. He’s filming the fantasy he deploys and the ideal ego he manifests in the form of Anthony as it attempts to get him back the control in his life he feels is slipping away due to the increasing presence of his mother. She constantly makes her presence known in his life showing up sonically, in the form of constant messages and missed calls, and showing up symbolically, in the form of a spider.

He attempts to secure an alternate mother qua partner in the form of Mary, a “holy” mother as opposed to the terrifying spider mother, but he is unable to do so. In fact, his fantasy ends up bringing him face to face with his worst fear in the form of his wife, Helen, transforming into a huge spider. Helen is someone he can’t “possess” and keep from succumbing to the forces of motherhood. In other words, his journey to overcome the trauma associated with his relationship to his mOther is only beginning , and though he may attempt to run away, he’ll never be able to deal with the issue till he can identify what about the spider, and subsequently motherhood, terrifies him so.

At it’s basis, this theory provides a cohesive explanation of why and how certain phenomena happen, but it also leaves room open for interpretation on what the nature of Adam’s trauma is (and all the men he’s linked to, such as the other purveyors of the fantasy room) and how he could hope to deal with it given the failure of his fantasy. ^[2] This is something I’m planning on tackling more explicitly in future articles which I will link back here once done. This is why Enemy remains one of my favorite movies. It’s just open to a plethora of interpretation and its construction allows Villenevue to get away with genuinely frightening moments. I for one am in the camp that the ending is terrifying because of the (seemingly) unexpected nature of Helen being a spider. Up to this point, the movie was fine “disguising” the spiders in dreams and sequences not directly related to characters, but now the issue has finally forced itself into view quite jarringly.

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5.Speaking of scary, the second scariest sequence for me (first being the ending) is when Anthony starts to stalk Mary. This happens right after the second “disintegration” sequences (refer back to Point 2), so it’s supposed to be Anthony on the move after almost being found out.

The scene, when approached as a first time viewer, immediately positions Anthony as a threat. He’s menacing like a slasher villain, as he positions himself on his motorcycle wearing his mask. He stalks and circles around Mary as she remains all the unaware – a predator stalking its prey. There’s a moment where he revs all the way past her, but the movie cuts subtly and he re-appears in the frame, this time behind her. It gives Anthony the appearance of utter control – he can appear anywhere when he wants. Finally, after stalking Mary to her place of work, he watches in the background, completely outside of her periphery. Like a phantom, he can get into position. He’s a terrifying foe for Adam.

However, when the same scene is viewed as part of Adam’s fantasy, the actions reveal the desperations of someone who wants to feel like they’re in control no matter what the situation. Anthony is able to sleuth around undetected in suave fashion because Adam believes that if he were able to act in that same way, he’d be able to resolve the issue of the spider qua maternal trauma.