Enemy In-Depth Analysis (Fully Explained Theory)

I liked your analysis very much, however, I think it's hard to believe that an actor can so easily become a real university professor although it wouldn't be impossible just very unlikely and certainly not in 6 months, unless he always had been a history teacher who at some point interrupted his job in order to become an actor and then went back but then his true persona would be Adam not Anthony.
And you cannot just fake being a professor.


The car accident seemed too fatal to leave just a tiny scar and Mary completely unhurt so that she could come back again and why would she do that?

What really interests me is whether Adam had a ring mark when he slept with the pregnant Helen.

And why would Mary be so hysterically upset about a ring mark if she was just a one night stand hook-up? She would only be upset if she had led a serious relationship with Adam who suddenly had a ring mark on his finger.

And what was the meaning of the second meeting of Adam and Anthony where they agreed to share Mary? If they were one person, the only explanation would be that Adam had a girlfriend Mary who he met again after getting married pretending to be the old Adam while thinking to be Anthony or something

"Some people are immune to good advice."
-Saul Goodman

Solo quería decir... TREMENDO análisis. Y fascinante película, ya habia visto "The Double" y creo que hacen muy buena pareja, para ser hijas de la misma madre.

You mention in your analysis there is a pregnant Mary in the first scene. There isn't. It is pregnant Helen at the crappy apartment.

Adam is both the alternate and the primary. The original Adam\Anthony is Adam who is a history teacher. He starts becoming Anthony and thinking of himself as an Actor\Anthony. I think it is that Adam\Thinker\Anthony\Actor that is "real." That is who the women in the film see him as. They see him as Adam who has evolved into Anthony. They have the history and the chronology that Adam and Anthony split apart do not have, because each of them only has their fractured pieces. As Adam becomes Anthony, Adam is over taken, only to emerge later as an alternate to Anthony. When they face each other they are the two halves of the same man, each seeing an alternate, while the women are suddenly confronting a man gone insane.

If you watch the interview with Denis and Jake, Denis comes right out and says when Helen confronts the reality of Adam at the school she is frightened by her husband's obvious insanity, while also encountering him as the man she fell in love with.

They also confirm the film is a spiral and not in chronological order and the more I think about it the more I don't think it can be put in a timeline. There are parts of the "story" that I think can be placed before or after other parts, but there is so much implied repetition it's like trying to wrap your mind around time travel.

The only thing I feel I can say for certain is the beginning shot of pregnant Helen in the shabby apartment is actually after the very last scene in the movie. The mother is commenting on the phone about his crappy "new" apartment, while Helen has the man she fell in love with back.

Has he gone insane before? Is that why Helen says "I think you know. I think you know." Has she lived through it before? Her recognition of his condition when she's laying on the couch makes me think that she isn't just aware of the cheating repeating, but the insanity as well.

Is the cheating with Mary in the shabby apartment before or after that or both? Are we being shown segments from multiple splits? I think we might be, which makes it all the more difficult to put the whole thing on that spiraling string. A spiral is a line, not a circle, but it is also cyclical. I don't think we are meant to know exactly where on the string each scene is, but there are scenes we are meant to know happen before or after other scenes. That is what is important, not figuring out an absolute timeline.

I believe the car crash is the "end" of the story and I believe both were killed. Basically he repeated the "farce" again, trying to become Anthony, and it killed him.

The exact chronology in the spiral down to the car crash doesn't matter. All you are meant to understand is that it repeats. From whole, to split, to infidelity, to merge, to whole, to split, etc. Until CRASH!

Excellent excellent film!

awesome my friend, you are awesome.

have you read the book this movie is based on?

"Story repeats Itself, over and over again. TIME IS A FLAT CIRCLE." Rust Cohle,True Detective, season 1

Great analysis, thanks for that, I came straight here after watching hoping for something to help me understand. :D

I could only skim through your analysis for now, but will certainly return to finish in-depth! Thank you so much for taking the time to share with us. I agree that your first few points are certainly obvious (I also don't know how viewers missed the blatant cues: scar, the car crash, the mistress connection, the university lecture of "history repeating itself" as "tragedy...[then]farce", "order" and "chaos" repeated in web-form on the blackboard, etc.).
I totally get the confusion, though, and the varied perspectives. This is what makes this film true Art. (That in itself earns the film 2 points.)

My basic interpretation was that A CREATED another identity, as a way to compartmentalize, justify, and ultimately cope. My major/fave cue was his wife's devastating emotion, particularly at the school benches, and then at home (great portrayal overall, that actress did), then the conversation where she tells him she wants HIM to stay, as in that Adam, the attentive, considerate, compassionate one (the scene after Adam & Anthony "switch", when they are in bed and she mutters "how was school?" or something similar). That seemed to be where A truly began to gain self-awareness.

I, too, missed the obvious possibility that his CRASH (and related trauma) created it, like an actual physiological change. I LOVE the tiny details I did read in your analysis, particularly the "Cheating" song. I doubt I EVER would've made that connection! I look forward to reading the rest later (bookmarked). Really cool of you; thanks again! :)