Villeneuve’s film, Enemy (2013), is ostensibly
about two men who look alike (they are played by the same actor). Jake Gyllenhaal
plays both Adam and Anthony. That both characters have the same frontal scar in
the same bodily location signals that the identity goes beyond the possibility
that they are identical twins. The identity topic in philosophy of mind is thus
salient in the film, and this has invited several commentators to delve deeply into
psychological analysis to suggest that Adam is a figment of Anthony’s
subconscious, or vice versa. The film does not make clear what exactly is real
and what may be a character’s mental construction. Suffice it to say that the
film is very difficult to comprehend. Even when Anthony’s wife appears to
Adam/Anthony as a giant spider at the very end of the film, it is only
conjecture to assume that the spider represents the heaviness of constraint in
being in a relationship of commitment rather than anything goes—the latter
being inconsistent with a real relationship. The film presents the viewers with
intimations of philosophy of mind and more directly of relationship ethics;
these two domains play off each other.
Anthony is a movie actor who
has trouble being faithful sexually to his wife, Helen, who is pregnant. Having
discovered that he and Adam look alike even down to the same scar, Anthony
angrily demands that Adam turn over the clothes he is wearing and the keys of
his car so Anthony can pick up Mary, Adam’s girlfriend, for a “romantic getaway,”
meaning sex. It is a way to have yet another affair. Adam hands over his suit
and the keys, and heads over to Anthony’s apartment and to Helen, who realizes that
Adam rather than Anthony has turned up; she is happy to have Adam sexually and
even to stay, which he can do because Anthony and Mary are killed in a car
accident after Mary has discovered that the man she is with cannot possibly be
Adam. Whereas Adam is meek and caring, Anthony is a sexual predator and, not
coincidentally, emotionally disturbed in an aggressive way. Both women easily
catch on to the switch, and whereas Helen welcomes the switch, Mary does not.
It is the stark difference in the men’s psychology that keeps them from being
identical as understood in the philosophy of mind sub-discipline, and that has
invited commentators to propose that one of the two men is actually a mental
projection of the other. The film may not provide enough fodder from which a
definite conclusion regarding whether only one of the two men exist beyond
being a projection, the sexual ethics of the two men are more straightforward,
and yet even in this respect, some blurring is evident.
Neither Adam nor Anthony is very
close emotionally to their significant other in spite of living together. Adam
would rather grade papers than have sex with Mary even when she is drunk and horny,
and Anthony almost ignores Helen, and, as mentioned above, is oriented to the
pursuit of other women. Men who are addicted to the high from the conquest for
sex tend to treat romantic relationships as if they were possible without ethical
commitment even though the latter is essential for emotional trust. Even
responding to a plea of, “I need you now, emotionally,” with “I’m going to a
bar to meet some friends” eviscerates emotional trust even though sex is not
involved. Such selfishness and callousness render a person utterly unfit for a
genuine relationship because emotional commitment is requisite. Even so, I
believe that such a person can change, from within; asking for help is not
necessary, and, besides, love provides help without having to be asked.
When outside sex is added to the
mix, the toxicity of the callousness is magnified in emotional terms. A person’s
de facto, unstated priorities reflect whether commitment itself is
valued or rejected. Take for instance a woman whose “sugar daddy” finances her
high rent and trips to Miami Beach and Mexico in exchange for her always “coming
back to him.” Prioritizing such a “trophy with sex” arrangement means
deprioritizing possible love that is authentic in the sense of involving
commitment and thus real love. Helen instantly senses that Adam is a man with which
she can have these.
Wanting to have it both ways,
such as Anthony plays out in staying with Helen while cheating on her—he would
even misuse “I’m poly” as if that meant separate sex as an excuse for cheating—is
easily detected by potential suitors who instinctively know when they have been
deprioritized below even a lower good. The combination of an allowance and an
open policy on outside sex is too much for a weak, avaricious psyche that is addicted
to sex to resist, but this does not mean that even a weak person cannot gradually
gather will-power from within and leave the void of what is actually empty
space. Faced with such an arrangement as befits a sexual addiction, using
people, and an aversion to commitment and thus emotional intimacy, a real suitor
has no choice but to walk away unless or until the “Anthony” turns himself
around. In the film, it is clear that Helen has given up on that, and yet she
is pregnant with a baby with him. Were Adam not to have slipped in by Anthony’s
insistence on sex with Mary, Helen would be in the living hell of being with a
serial liar.
Can someone like Anthony turn
around? Were he not killed in the crash with Mary near the end of the film, would
he eventually get tired of the recurrent empty sex with other women and come to
value and even crave Helen’s emotional/sexual affection? Do people who are trophies
of “sugar daddies” eventually tire even in spite of the money and seek out a
real relationship—meaning one that includes emotional commitment rather than
lies? In the film, even Adam decides to cheat on Helen by taking the key that
he has discovered to a stripper club that evening. Even Adam, who presumably
has been faithful to his girlfriend, Mary, has absorbed a bit of Anthony.
Whether one of the two men is
actually the alter-ego of the other—a mere figment in a divided psyche—the message
of the film may be that emotional commitment requires maturity and the desire
and will to take oneself as a being a promise-keeper rather than an exploiter
and serial liar. The sheer divergence mentally between Adam and Anthony, even
though neither is perfect nor could be expected to be, demonstrates the difference
between sexual ethics as a challenge and alternatively as disvalued in favor of
utter selfish disregard even in the face of another’s love. To say that the Adams
of the world are pure whereas the Anthony’s are lost causes is too strict and
thus not realistic. To say Adam is “good” and Anthony is “bad” is oversimplistic,
and thus inaccurate. We are all human, all too human. In Anthony, there is
something worthy of being loved, and in Adam, something that diminishes emotional
intimacy. Adams may occasionally lapse (and be forgiven for being human), and a
few Anthony’s may decide to shift from one world to another, especially if a
soul-mate happens to be met. The fates of both Adam and Anthony are not written,
and outside help is not required, should either or both men (or the same
person) actively opt for emotional intimacy in a genuine relationship. Besides
hinting at the identity problem in philosophy of mind, the medium of film is capable
of projecting two alternative routes in terms of sexual ethics in the context
of a higher good of which everyone is capable of attainment.
