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TL;DR

"Enemy"...

Yanno what I think...

I think this was a story about a man that got so good at manipulating everyone around him that before the movie started he got it into his head to use manipulation techniques on himself and was experimenting, possibly with a combination of hypnosis and psychedelic drugs like mushrooms or LSD with the goal of either killing off or walling off a part of himself that he rightfully didn't find desirable, and up until that point had no ability to control. Not only the memory and guilt of his infidelity, but the lust and desire for the infidelity itself as well...

And I think when the movie began, he had already somehow accomplished this. For at least long enough to have gotten close enough back in with his wife that it looked like he probably was going to be able to save the marriage if he played his cards right.

But this version of him was really jealous of the idea that the other version had sex with his wife (to the viewer's knowledge at least, this had not happened up to this point). And he used that belief as justification to take the "other" version's mistress out on a date and have his way with her as revenge. (Possibly emphasizing beyond him just kind of being a Dickhead to this point that he had managed to bury his sinful Lust, with equally sinful Wrath). Petty and what amounts to total nonsense if you were still looking at this movie as if both Jakes were two different people as almost everyone certainly was the first time viewing it.

My point is, until there was a rage inside of "Dickhead" and a desire for revenge, it didn't appear that this version of Jake had any real recollection let alone remorse for cheating on his wife. I don't think whatever he did to himself left a great personality behind for his wife to deal with overall, but the guilt of his infidelity as well as the desire for more was successfully gone.

... until it wasn't.

And our mild-mannered "good guy" protagonist comes out of the woodwork of the deep, dark recesses of Jake's suppressed mind. The "good guy" version is actually the "bad guy".

Sure... he was the suppressed guilt. He was the part of Jake that his wife literally sat up and took notice of as she could immediately tell that he had changed and he was genuinely sorry for what he did. The part of Jake that she could believe actually felt sorry for what he did and would do anything to make it up to her.

But at the same time, he was also the suppressed lust. Though old boy "Dickhead" never had it in him to give his wife a genuine apology, he probably would have remained faithful to her for the rest of his life.

But once our "hero" Jake takes over and says he was sorry and had himself a good cry, it didn't take very long for his entire persona to shift right back to where it was before he got caught cheating. New secret plans to go out and fuck around on her at another meeting had fallen literally into his lap, and were waiting for him all the while, and his wife again became the spider.


If that is the movie I just watched twice, or something very close to it, well played, Sirs.

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MY POST:

One more thing I thought of regarding the spiders. Though they make no mention or even any hint that I could tell that Upper Class/Rich ex-Hollywood (possibly wannabe) Starlet Mom was a "Black Widow" herself, she's wearing all black and there is a LOT of black in the decor surrounding her in Isabella Rossellini's only on-screen scene. And there is never an appearance or even mention of Jake's father in the movie.

Perhaps there's even deeper levels here and our boy Jake saw his mom do something pretty heinous when he was too young to really process it, and subconsciously he worries that one day his own wife will have enough of his bullshit and do the same thing to him. Or maybe he didn't see anything and was completely oblivious to it when he was young, but once it happened a few more times a lot of people started whispering things that I would imagine would be quite damaging to a young impressionable mind when they're all saying it about his mother.

It would easily work into the story and would at least put a 2x multiplier on the meaning of the spiders in the film. Now we're not only talking about the spider luring him into the web (his subconscious feelings about being married to anyone in general, and not specifically his wife), but now we're also talking about the woman he married having her way with him while he's stuck in her web until the eventual day finally comes around where he is decapitated and eaten by her in the end. And with the amount of guilt he feels for what he does he seems to be content resigning himself to that fate because he feels that he deserves it.



I mean... come on...

I just went back to look at that scene again on YT to see if it really was as black as I remember it.



(VIDEO REMOVED IN THIS REPOST FOR FORMATTING ISSUES. PASTE THE FOLLOWING IN AFTER THE "=" IN ANY YOUTUBE LINK TO SEE THE VIDEO.)

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Just look at that thumbnail.

Mom's all dressed in black. There's black on the outskirts (and you can see the framed movie poster of Mom when she was young on the left side).

But it's all bright and lit up white in the center of the room. Jake is sitting in the Black Widow's den, but the only reason he's safe is because he's her son. I think those black lights above the dining room table might even signify her fallen prey. Do I count 1, 2, 3 dead husbands hanging up there?

And all that white behind them, right behind the DINING ROOM TABLE is her Webbing.

Take a look at what's back there in the White. I see shelves with paint and brushes on them. Easels... Canvas... Ornate picture frames waiting to be fit over the finished work.

The spider, always weaving her web.






And then... On the flip side... I don't recall his pregnant wife he cheated on wearing much of anything besides white. The mistress wears black. All the time. Blue jeans at times, but always with a black top. Sometimes wearing a sexy black dress.

Maybe this goes even one step further and insinuates that he's following exactly in his father's footsteps and he will end up just like his father did. And it also means that he is destined to damage his wife so badly that he will turn what is only his projections onto her into reality, and that was what happened to his mother.

After you realize what is really going on in this movie and Jake's wife doesn't come off as an alien life form or A.I. program that doesn't quite understand how human interactions work for saying the things that she does when she says them, she actually comes off as quite a sweet woman and somebody that most any man would proudly call a wife. Maybe they're saying that Isabella Rosselini's character was once just like her, until her cheater of a husband turned her heart cold and after years of emotional abuse, betrayal and infidelity she killed him... and then found out that she kind of liked it and made it a regular thing, especially since it seems to have been quite lucrative. Perhaps my earlier assumptions were wrong and the reason he got into a few of those "Grove" meetings wasn't because of his Mom being an ex-starlet, and the much more likely scenario is that one or both of his two deceased step-fathers were powerful Harvey Weinstein types before they met their untimely demise?

And maybe they're saying that if Jake keeps doing what he's doing that he's dooming his once and currently still virtuous wife to the same fate as what befell his own mother, and himself to the same fate of his father?

And history repeating itself, in this instance generationally, is something I already mentioned above when I referenced this quote this from the movie:

"It was Hegel that said that all the greatest world events happen twice. And then Karl Marx added: the first time it was a tragedy and the second time it was a farce."

Jake is a Narcissist in this movie and OF COURSE one of the GREATEST WORLD EVENTS would be in his own life.


Man... this was a really good movie.

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