Villeneuve & Gyllenhaal: From Enemy to muse
Saturday, May 28, 2016 at 12:35PM Cinematic magic often occurs when an actor and director find their careers entwined and they're able to bring out the best in each other. Film history has been littered with Directors and their muses; Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe, John Ford and John Wayne, Hitchcock had many, Woody Allen had his, too. Now it seems Denis Villeneuve and Jake Gyllenhaal are joining those ranks with their recently announced third collaboration The Son, based on the Jo Nesbo book. The moody thriller will follow Gyllenhaal as a heroin addicted prisoner who escapes to learn the truth about his father's suicide. Hopefully this also means we'll have another career best performance from Gyllenhaal. Following Nightcrawler, Zodiac, and both the Villeneuve pictures (Enemy, Prisoners), crime thrillers seem to fit Gyllenhaal like a glove...
While Prisoners was more palatable to audiences, Enemy felt far more like the unique stamp of an auteur and muse project. This brain bender offers the only thing better than Jake Gyllenhaal starring in a movie: two Jake Gyllenhaals starring in a movie. The puzzle of a man meeting his exact double is gripping, thought provoking, and one of the most underappreciated films of the last few years. The curious spider motif that recurrs throughout Enemy is an appropriate metaphor for the delicate web that Villeneuve and Gyllenhaal spin together.
We'll have to wait awhile for The Son, though, as both men have very full slates with Villeneuve working on the Blade Runner sequel and finishing the Amy Adams sci-fi drama Story of Your Life. Gyllenhaal next stars in Nocturnal Animals from Tom Ford and he obviously has a taste for alternative acclaimed directors, since he's got roles in new Antoine Fuqua, David Gordon Green, and Joon-ho Bong projects as well. Gyllenhaalics rejoice.
Are you excited about this latest auteur & muse team?
Reader Comments (4)
I felt like all through "Prisoners" Gyllenhall wasn't really looking at his scene-partners' eyes so much as mentally replacing their face with his future Oscar.
But in "Nightcrawler"? He was uh-mazing. Again a bit finicky and vividly picturing that future Oscar but not in a way that interfered with the character or performance. If anything, I wonder if it helped make it that much more electric.
I'm yet to catch "Enemy", alas. No idea how it keeps slipping away from me.
Has become one of my favorites... although was not crazy about Demolition.
Jake was the best actor in "Prisoners" he was robbed of an Oscar nomination. Not even two Gyllehaals could make me stay awake during "Enemy"
The dynamics of creative control over The Son, will be most interesting.
Enemy: Jake was third choice, after Bardem and Bale. It makes a pivotal point (a "threshold" of sorts), in both director and actor's respective career/personal development.
Prisoners: WB wanted a bankable lead, according to Jake so he got a generic cop role (which he developed while onstage in an off-Broadway play, as a layabout uncle who ~raped his niece?!) The offer was hinged on Villeneuve's good experience on Enemy, intended as a stepping stone into studio filmmaking for a Foreign Oscar nominee. Villeneuve joked after Prisoners, they needed "couples therapy" from some shouting matches on set.
The Son: Jake's production company optioned the novel. Villeneuve is attached after he fulfills his Alcon contract, intending to build up through genre-filmmaking, to their most prized IP, Blade Runner. Previously, Villeneuve claimed to offer a role in Sicario to Jake, who kept him abreast of his Southpaw progress, reconvened at the TIFF premiere of Demolition. So this project is finally Jake getting to play the lead in a commercial film directed by Villeneuve.