Throughout Denis Villeneuve’s psychological thriller “Enemy,” spiders are a key symbol. The ambiguous story finds Jake Gyllenhaal playing two roles in what is essentially a doppelgänger film. One character is a teacher, the other is an actor, and when they learn of each other’s existence, everything they think they know is called into question. The presence of the spiders is literal at some points and figurative at others. The film never explains the significance of the spiders, and they can be interpreted in multiple ways.
When asked about the spiders in interviews, Villeneuve has often dodged the question. In a 2014 interview with Curzon, he said, seemingly in jest, “I cannot talk about the spiders because I need more therapy.” As covered by Vulture, Villeneuve once hinted at the meaning of the spiders in an interview featured on Amazon. He said that the spider symbol was, “An image that I found that was a pretty hypnotic and profound [way] to express something about femininity.” He went on to describe the spider imagery in the film as “images that are frightening and oppressive, but at the same time, you feel the image. It prints itself in your brain, but you feel uncomfortable with it.”
Given that “Enemy” was adapted from a novel — “The Double” by Portuguese author José Saramago — you might expect to find more concrete answers in the source material. However, the spiders are a unique addition made by Villeneuve for the film. In the same Amazon interview, Villeneuve said of the spider imagery, “It’s not in the novel, and I’m not sure if Saramago would’ve been happy with the idea.”
