The Double

The Double is loosely based on the Dostoevsky novel.

We meet Simon James (Jesse Eisenberg) on a train; deep in his own thoughts. Thoughts which are interrupted when someone tells him he's in his seat. The rest of the carriage is empty but Simon decides to move anyway. Then instead of taking another seat he chooses to stand in the empty carriage, this you realise later is important.

You see Simon is insignificant and he knows it. At work, nobody knows him or even remembers him from one day to the next despite him working there for seven years. He has ideas but nobody, least of all his boss, wants to listen to them and he lacks the courage to speak up for himself. As for the cute girl who does the photocopying (Mia Wasikowska), he knows he’s never going to have the confidence to declare his interest in her.

If Simon lacks balls, then James must have extra. James Simon is a new work colleague and is everything Simon wants to be. He is confident and adored by everyone. He is also Simon’s double, an exact physical double. Although this fact goes unnoticed by everyone apart from Simon himself.

At first Simon makes friends with him and helps him with his work only to see James lauded by his boss using Simon’s own ideas. Not only is James an instant hit with his boss, he proves irresistible to the girls as well. Whilst Hannah of photocopying room has never given Simon a second glance, she is immediately enthralled by James and asks Simon to fix them up.

The big question throughout is, is James real? and how much of what we see actually is real? Is James merely an alter-ego? There are hints in many directions but we never get to really find out.

Of course I could be reading too much into this and it’s simply meant to show how ridiculous it could be if someone double did really appear in to their life.

The film is a real curiosity piece, which needed a few pints to debrief it afterwards. Sadly we have a race tomorrow. Pretty much like ‘Under the Skin’ last week, this is a film that will divide opinion.

After filming this together Eisenberg and Wasikowska became an item, so I wonder which one she preferred.

Stoker

A tale of fun, games and happy families.

Stoker revolves around something that nearly all households have, a sulky introverted teenager. Only this one has no equal. Ok, perhaps at first India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) has an excuse. Her adored father (Dermot Mulroney) has just been killed in a freak car accident and her mother is Nicole Kidman. That’s not a good start to your eighteenth birthday in anyone’s books.

Just as India is wondering where she’s going to get shoes from now, because her father gave her the same pair every year on her birthday and who she’s going to shoot the local animal population with because her father did that too, long lost Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode) pops up out of thin air to attend the funeral. He’s been off travelling the world apparently, funny then that no one’s mentioned him before...

The good news is he’s going to stick around for a while, maybe indefinitely. India’s mother, Evelyn, who has already been taking her suddenly widowed status far too well now perks up even more. Though that’s relative, Evelyn doesn’t really do perky. Kidman is cast perfectly in the role of an unstable woman who sits around the house looking brittle, detached and pathetic all day long, stopping momentarily to flirt outrageously with her handsome brother-in-law before reverting back to type.

To be fair, Charlie makes eyes at both of them. It’s just that while Evelyn thinks Uncle Charlie is sex on legs and may possibly be up for more than your average family bonding, India thinks he’s the creepy uncle to end all creepy uncles and continues to ignore his attempts to befriend her.

In fact there’s something more than something a little creepy about Charlie. One suspects he has a whole football team worth of skeletons in his closet. Their housekeeper seems to know something. So, she promptly disappears and then turns up later amongst the ice cream in the freezer. Auntie Gwen (Jacki Weaver) knows something about him too but before she can say very much she’s packed off for a short stay at the local motel. A very short stay. 

India too, suspects that he may have ulterior motives and yet, she becomes increasingly infatuated with him.

Of course there’s something really creepy about India too and she’s a total gift to the high school bullies, who constantly harass her for being a weirdo. To their cost when they find out that she’s a dab hand with a pencil. When she gives the come on to the nice one amongst them, she then finds out that he’s not so nice after all. Ok mate, so she bit you but is that any excuse for trying to rape her?

It’s at this point in life that a girl needs a guardian uncle, luckily she has one to hand. Uncle Charlie and his belt speed to their rescue and give the boy the Auntie Gwen treatment.

Uncle and Niece, having discovered a shared interest, now bond further by sharing burying duties in the garden. After which India tries to ring the aforementioned Auntie Gwen, only to hear her phone ringing somewhere underneath her feet, in the ground. After a moment’s reflection, in the shower, she realises what a sexual turn on it all is.

Now India feels confident in her own ability to go over the edge big time, so she does, with bells on. The murderer's apprentice has graduated.

This intriguing family tale unfolds very slowly, building a gathering air of dread and gloom as it goes. This gives you time to peer into the minds of the Stokers and examine the family dynamic. It's not a pretty sight. Then when the expected murders finally arrive, they are presented with such relish that it is a little disturbing and that's not a pretty sight either.

You may guess that I loved it. Yes it's a weird film but just go with it. I thought it was clever too and nicely confusing; some scenes could either be real or imaginary, I like that sort of thing. There’s even a hint of very dark comedy in there which sits nice and uneasily amongst the murders.

People will say there’s a lack of a coherent plot and too many loose ends at the end but I’d simply say they weren't trying hard enough. What's not to understand? and as for loose ends, what loose ends? There aren't any, everyone's dead.

The Kids Are All Right

'The Kids Are All Right' is written, directed and I think most other things by Lisa Cholodenko. Who apparently writes from personal experience, so it’s kind of semi-biographical.

Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore) are an 'old' married couple but, and the clue is in their abbreviated Christian names, a lesbian couple. They also each have a teenage child produced with the aid of the same anonymous sperm donor. The test tube version one assumes. In many ways it’s an ordinary family with the kids constantly embarrassed and annoyed by their parents.



The eldest, Joni (Mia Wasikowska), named after Joni Mitchell, is now eighteen and legally able to track down her biological father without her Mother’s permission. She isn’t that bothered but is convinced to do so by her younger brother (Josh Hutcherson). Though we don’t get given any background to why the kids feel differently about it and why her brother is so keen. The man they trace is an easygoing restaurateur and organic farmer called Paul (Mark Ruffalo).

The brother by the way is a fifteen year old called Laser... 'Cool name' says his new found Dad. Errr no. Well maybe for a dog. Then again, no not even for a dog.



Paul begins to regularly meet with the kids and is taken by surprise by the fact he starts to feel very paternal towards them. He seems to have a positive influence on them and it starts to change him a bit as a person.

As for the mums. Jules is intrigued by this man who is undeniably part of her kids make up, yet also a complete stranger and she agrees to design and construct a garden for him. While control freak Nic is suspicious and jealous of someone she sees as an interloper in their cosy family set up.

There is a side plot about Joni trying to discover herself sexually and about Laser, well there’s not much about Laser actually, other than him stopping a friend of his inexplicably peeing on a dog...

Nic and Jules’s relationship has obviously gone a bit stale and one night we get a comedic, well cringe inducing, scene where they attempt to spice things up by watching male gay porn complete with leather clad hunks. An odd choice, that they then have to attempt to explain, unconvincingly, to Joni when she overhears them.

The result is more old spice that hot ‘n’ spicy, so it's no wonder that Jules decides to get her next sperm donation the old fashioned way and throws herself into Paul's leather clad arms the next chance she gets. A turn of events that will no doubt annoy lesbians in their droves. Who knows if a girl can be turned that quickly and that easily but it’s a male fantasy that Paul can now cross off his things to do before I die list.



Consequently Jules spends more time getting athletic in Paul’s bedroom than digging his garden. Cue several gratuitous graphic love scenes, although we’d already had one earlier with Paul and his attractive female assistant. Jules will be pleased to know that he seemed to repeat the exact same repertoire in the exact same order with her.

One of the strongest moments of the film is when Nic has a scene with Paul at the dinner table, watched by the whole family, where she finally seems to come around to Paul's easy going charm, almost to the point of seduction. Jules looks mightily jealous and concerned. Then Nic discovers her partner’s hair in Paul’s bathroom and subsequently, when she snoops, in his bed... Hang on. A question if I may? Would you recognise your partner’s hair in the plug hole? I wouldn't. Long brown hair is long brown hair. You would have to be a mega suspicious person to jump to the same conclusion that Nic did and if your partner wasn’t even supposed to be into that gender, totally paranoid too.

This unsatisfactory discovery of their affair leads us to a very unsatisfactory ending. Well actually it’s a complete cop out. The film had created some interesting situations that were well worth exploring but then it all ended in such an illogical way.



Jules grovels to the rest of the family, apologizes for her actions and assures Nic that she’s still an All American lesbian despite showing more than a few traits of being a rampant bisexual. So Jules rejects Paul, despite the fact he confesses he’s fallen in love with her. As do the kids, the kids that Paul has now realised mean everything to him. Enabling Nic to triumphantly tell Paul to go and find his own family, when he comes to their house to make his own apology.

So in the end the film never goes anywhere and everyone appears to end up back where they started, resuming their previous lives as if nothing has happened. Which is something I really hate to see in films.

It also caught me off guard. I’d thought all the way through I was supposed to be rooting for Paul, who after all didn’t ask for any of this and it was the kids who initiated the contact with him, but all along it was a film about two lesbians staying together in the face of adversity.

It’s an entertaining film but one that fails, frustratingly, to fulfil its potential.

I imagine in the end both kids went on to maintain contact with Paul, Joni did takes his hat that he gave her to college with her, meanwhile Jules presumably left Nic, anything else just wouldn't be realistic.