Iris’s review published on Letterboxd:
"I don't want to be a boy held up by strings."
I went into “The Double” (2013, dir. By Richard Ayoade) without knowing anything but the basic premise and man, it blew me out of the water. It was perfectly confusing, thrilling, and weird which made it work. Richard Ayoade has never disappointed me and I find that all of his movies are the perfect amount of indie quirkiness.
The simplicity of the premise is met with an insanely great execution. This is a beautifully evil movie and it’s very well written and very unique and funny, in the really good dark humor kind of way.
Every character in the film was dynamic in a way that, to me, is comparable to the dynamics of “The Grand Budapest Hotel” (2014, Wes Anderson)’s characters. I am the biggest Jesse Eisenberg fan and this was one of the coolest things he’s done, I think. He played two polar opposite characters really well.
The cinematography, tone, and overall aesthetic is super interesting to me. The tone is very weird, dark, and eerie but the color scheme and shown technology is different from that. The retro 60’s vibe, with its faded, muted, monochrome color and technology/music, is so different, and I love it. Speaking of the sound, it’s so fitting for a thriller like this because it keeps you on the edge of your seat.
Overall, it’s just a great movie.