Bong Joon Ho’s newest film, Mickey 17, is a number of issues. It’s a narrative about work, cloning, colonization, inequality, first contact, and the evils of capitalism. It’s a satire, a slapstick comedy, and a sci-fi epic. It additionally belongs to one of many rarest and strangest subgenres of movie: doppelgänger motion pictures.
Robert Pattinson performs Mickey, who indicators himself as much as be an “expendable” on an expedition to colonize an alien planet. Because of this, if he dies, the expedition science group can merely print out one other one among him and obtain his consciousness into it. (In a contact of director Bong’s signature visible wit, his consciousness is saved in an previous brick.) When the seventeenth Mickey survives what appeared like sure demise, he finds himself residing alongside Mickey 18 — however duplicates are strictly forbidden. Hijinks ensue.
It’s the legislation of doppelgänger motion pictures that the doubles have to be inverses of one another, personality-wise — partly as a showcase for the actor doing double obligation, partly to make them simpler for audiences to inform them aside, and partly to evoke the duality of identification, of ego and id. Pattinson does an excellent job contrasting Mickey 17, a hesitant doormat with a wheedling voice, with the extra strident Mickey 18; it’s by no means complicated which is which. Additionally it is the legislation that these similar doubles should develop into locked in a darkish dance with one another as they try and devour, assimilate, or in any other case overtake one another. Often there’s an unwitting sexual or romantic associate entangled. This contest is usually resolved properly, however normally not. Mickey 17 obeys all these guidelines.
As acquainted as its tropes could appear, a real doppelgänger film is a reasonably uncommon discover. They’re a subset, or cousin, of a extra widespread kind: the similar twin film. An similar twin film isn’t essentially a doppelgänger film, coping with the elemental premise of 1 identification cut up in two — though it may be. Useless Ringers and Adaptation are doppelgänger motion pictures, however Legend and The Dad or mum Entice will not be. These are simply motion pictures with similar twins in them.
Doppelgänger motion pictures are sometimes psychological thrillers, however actually, they are often spliced with nearly any style: motion, comedy, even romance. Listed here are a few of our favorites.
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Denis Villeneuve’s final really Canadian movie arrived in 2013 sandwiched between his first two Hollywood photos, Prisoners and Sicario, and was reasonably ignored. It’s an indirect, compelling story during which Jake Gyllenhaal, a mild-mannered, mopey historical past trainer, spots somebody who seems to be precisely like him taking part in a bit half in a movie, and tracks him down. Different Jake is, after all, extra assured and doesn’t have Jake 1’s dedication points; their assembly proves to be a disastrous mistake. Or does it? Enemy is haunting and thought-provoking with out being overdetermined, it seems to be unreal — Villeneuve shoots Toronto like a sepia wasteland of alienation — and it has probably the most WTF endings ever.
Picture: twentieth Century Fox
The place to look at: Prime Video, Peacock, free with a library card on Hoopla and Kanopy, free with advertisements on Pluto TV
Though spliced with the similar twin style, David Cronenberg’s totally chilling 1988 masterpiece Useless Ringers would possibly nonetheless be the archetypal doppelgänger film. Jeremy Irons performs Beverly and Elliot Mantle, twin gynecologists who usually swap lives and identities prefer it’s no large factor, however who descend right into a spiral of insanity and habit when shy Beverly falls in love with a affected person (Geneviève Bujold) who has two wombs. Cronenberg’s common physique horror is sublimated within the particulars of this comparatively tame however nonetheless deeply disturbing and devastating movie, and Irons is flat-out unbelievable in it.
Picture: Sony Photos Classics through Everett Assortment
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Like Enemy, Duncan Jones’ 2009 debut Moon is a movie about how disturbing it will be to find you had a doppelgänger, and like Mickey 17, it’s a sci-fi cautionary story about cloning and the cheapness of human life. Sam Rockwell is a solitary lunar miner who awakens after an accident, solely to find himself, nonetheless mendacity unconscious on the accident web site. It seems they’re each clones. It’s a uncommon instance of a doppelgänger film the place the doubles work collectively to uncover a bigger thriller, but it surely’s nonetheless unsettling, and its location — the darkish facet of the moon — is ripe with the eeriness and symbolism the style thrives on.
Picture: Sony Photos Dwelling Leisure
The place to look at: At no cost with a library card on Hoopla, or for digital rental/buy on Amazon, Apple TV
And now for one thing utterly completely different. Usually, a doppelgänger film is about two doubles attempting to destroy one another. This 2001 Jet Li film is about one evil doppelgänger attempting to destroy all the opposite variations of himself throughout the multiverse, and one other good one attempting to cease him. It’s a dumb, post-Matrix little bit of high-concept motion — or, alternatively, a popcorn precursor to Every little thing In all places All at As soon as. It’s not as considerate about doppelgängers as the opposite motion pictures on this listing, truthfully, however there aren’t many doppelgänger motion pictures the place you get to look at Jet Li doubles do kung fu on one another (or Jason Statham have hair!), so it will get in.
Picture: Dean Rodgers/Magnolia Photos through Everett Assortment
The place to look at: Prime Video, free with a library card on Hoopla, free with advertisements on Pluto TV
Richard Ayoade’s black comedy from 2013 (an excellent doppelgänger 12 months), starring Jesse Eisenberg, is a modernized adaptation of the urtext of all doppelgänger fiction: Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s 1846 novella. (For extra literary doppelgängers with even better existential angst, strive Vladimir Nabokov’s Despair.) Eisenberg is the workplace employee whose life is upended by a extra assured doppelgänger, solely no one else can see the resemblance. Ayoade perhaps leans a little bit too onerous on the Kafkaesque visuals, however his lighter comedian sensibility is a welcome tackle this usually darkish material.
Picture: Common Photos
The place to look at: For digital rental/buy on Amazon, Apple TV
Jordan Peele’s 2019 follow-up to Get Out might be the perfect exploitation of doppelgängers for pure horror. Lupita Nyong’o and her household are terrorized by doppelgängers of themselves on trip; that is potent sufficient imagery as it’s, but it surely seems Peele has one thing even grander and darker in thoughts. After the wickedly pointed Get Out, some felt Us was too psychologically diffuse and elusive to land the identical manner, however that, certainly, is the purpose. Ambiguity and doppelgänger motion pictures go hand in hand.
John Woo’s Face/Off, during which John Travolta and Nicolas Cage swap faces, is technically not a doppelgänger film, but it surely hits so lots of the style’s themes, and is so extravagantly entertaining, it’s certainly allowed within the canon. Ditto A Totally different Man, the 2024 dramedy during which Sebastian Stan receives a miracle remedy for his facial disfigurement however then has his life overtaken by Adam Pearson, who seems to be one thing like his previous self. And in Black Swan, Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis don’t look precisely alike, however Dostoyevsky’s theme of duality — and story of an impostor assuming the protagonist’s life — are absolutely explored.
For another style flavors inside doppelgänger world, strive Invoice and Ted’s Bogus Journey, a broad comedy during which the wonderful duo should battle evil robotic variations of themselves, or The One I Love, which supplies the everyday low-key Sundance relationship drama a depraved doppelgänger twist. There are some sensible sci-fi twists on the idea embedded in Twin (clearly) and Annihilation (extra obscurely). And, returning to Cronenberg-adjacent territory: Does iconic Eighties horror Possession depend as a doppelgänger film? I’m undecided. I’m in two minds.
The place to look at: Face/Off is streaming on Paramount Plus, or free with a library card on Hoopla. A Totally different Man is streaming on Max. Black Swan is streaming on Max. Invoice and Ted’s Bogus Journey is streaming without spending a dime on Prime Video with advertisements. The One I Love is streaming without spending a dime with a library card on Hoopla, or without spending a dime with advertisements on Plex. Twin is streaming on AMC Plus, or without spending a dime with a library card on Hoopla. Annihilation is streaming on Paramount Plus. Possession is streaming on Shudder, Metrograph at Dwelling, and without spending a dime with a library card on Kanopy and Hoopla. All of those motion pictures can be found for digital rental or buy on Amazon and Apple TV.
