Denis Villenueve's bizarre Kafkaesque film with Jake Gyllenhaal. I think he made this right around the time of "Prisoners" and just decided, hey let's make a really bizarre flick and see if it works.

it sort of does, and sort of doesn't. you really have to stretch your imagination to buy the whole thing. the premise is pretty interesting: a bored college professor starts watching a movie and recognizes one of the extras in it as looking exactly like him. when he starts digging into the actor's life, he becomes obsessed with meeting him.

from there, it could have been like a "single white female" type of story. instead, it is more of an allegory. i don't want to give much away because this is one of those "the less you know about it, the better" movies. but you really have to be in the mood to watch a mindfuck movie to appreciate it.

it's heavy on symbolism, and very short on logic. some of it just won't make any sense, and the last shot is extremely polarizing. you'll either think it's brilliant or think it's the dumbest thing you've ever seen.

i liked the idea a lot, and appreciated the originality. the payoff is strong if you can piece together what it "really" is about.

if you're completely lost, there's not much else to appreciate about it besides the usual brilliant cinematography of any villenueve film.

out of

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