Writer/director/actor Richard Ayoade has two feet firmly in comedic quirk. Heâs most recognizable as straitlaced, bespectacled Moss from the British comedy series The IT Club, and his directorial film debut, 2010âs Submarine, was a smart, offbeat take on the coming-of-age genre. But while thereâs a subtle, sly sense of humor to Ayoadeâs new project, an adaptation of the Dostoyevsky novella The Double, for the most part itâs about as far from the world of quirky comedies as itâs possible to get.
In a dreary, undefined bureaucratic dystopiaâBrazil is an unavoidable touchstoneâJesse Eisenberg stars as James Simon, a sad-sack office drone whoâs creepily obsessed with a girl who works in the copy room. One day, a new man appears at the office: Simon James, also played by Eisenberg. Simon is in every way the opposite of James. Heâs friendly, appealing to women, and confident where James is clumsy, careless, and anxious. And while Simon initially positions himself as an ally, soon their relationship takes a menacing turn, threatening Jamesâs very sense of identity.
The Double is more interested in questions than answers: Is Simon a hallucination? Has James lost his mind? Itâs not an entirely satisfying experience, if we define âsatisfyingâ as âplot tied up with a bow on itââbut it is a curious, provocative, and absorbing one. 
