The Double

Synopsis

Doppelgangers – supernatural doubles of people – feature often in the literature and film of horror and absurdist persecution. British director Richard Ayoade’s moody, blackly comic take on the tradition is based on the 19th-century classic Russian novella by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It sees timid office worker Simon James driven toward madness when his doppelganger James Simon, who looks exactly like him but is confident and charismatic, takes up a job in his dingy, labyrinthine office. James wastes no time taking over all aspects of his life – even zeroing in on the attentions of co-worker Hannah, who Simon has an unrequited crush on.