The Enemy ending is an abrupt, shocking, and puzzling final moment that has been discussed widely since the movie's release in 2013. Directed by Denis Villeneuve, Enemy is a taut psychological drama starring Jake Gyllenhaal in a dual role as both Anthony Claire and Adam Bell, two men who appear identical but behave very differently. Gyllenhaal delivers two excellent performances as they discover one another and their uncanny resemblance. Each character is so different, challenging the audience to closely watch Gyllenhaal's performance in order to puzzle out exactly what's happening, making Enemy a particularly rewarding movie to revisit.

Villeneuve's acclaimed direction leaves several open questions with Enemy's ending as some viewers finish the movie still searching for an explanation. Though many aspects of the film are open to interpretation, several small clues point toward more definitive answers. It all builds to Enemy's final shot, which is distinctly unexpected and bizarre, but there are actually plenty of subtle aspects of the film that can be unpacked to make its baffling ending make sense.

Adam's Wife Changes Into A Giant Spider In Enemy's Final Scene

The Final Moment Makes For A Shocking And Puzzling Surprise

Despite Gyllenhaal's performance ticks that subtly differentiate the characters, these two men feel they can successfully as each other without being noticed. After Anthony decides to exploit his doppelgänger in order to achieve his own gratification, Adam finds himself stepping into Anthony's life. The two men are unable to act as the other, and the respective women they're attempting to fool see through their acts. Mary notices the mark on Anthony's finger from his wedding ring, and Helen understands that the man treating her with kindness and respect isn't her husband, but is instead his doppelgänger.

Mary and Anthony's argument about his identity ends in a car crash that presumably kills them both. It's more surprising to see that Helen accepts the idea of Adam replacing her husband, but his last-minute choice to attend the same sex club that Anthony frequents is another shocking twist. After seeing the same photograph that he himself possesses in Anthony's home, his identity is called into question, but Enemy's most shocking moment comes at its very end.

Checking on Helen after telling her he won't be home that evening, he sees she has transformed into a giant spider. It's an abrupt and unexpected creative choice, but it actually speaks to the film's deeper themes and ideas.

It Is Ambiguous If Anthony And Adam Are Different People

Is The Movie About One Man's Self-Centered Journey?

The dual role of Adam and Anthony undoubtedly ranks among Jake Gyllenhaal's best, not least because of the subtle differences between them. In fact, the distinctions between the two are so subtle that there is a strong argument for them being the same person all along. This idea is backed up by the fact that Anthony owns a picture of himself and Helen, while Adam owns a version ripped in half, showing only himself. This implies that Adam is simply a more reserved and controlled part of Anthony's psyche that's trying to move past his more destructive and unpleasant behaviors.

However, there's also a strong argument for the two being separate characters. Enemy explores the ideas of patterns and cycles of behavior, and Adam's fascination with Anthony leading him to fall into the same cycle of selfishness appears to prove that the two men are independent of one another. Whether or not Enemy's main characters are the same person — leading to a Fight Club-style fake person twist — isn't explicitly stated by the film, but with regard to the film's broader intentions, it doesn't actually matter at all.

The Meaning Of Enemy's Spider Relates To Adam's Disrespect For His Wife

Helen Is Seen As A Victim Of Anthony's Selfishness

The key to understanding Helen's transformation into a spider in Enemy actually lies within the film's opening scene. Anthony is shown attending a private sex club, where he watches a scantily-clad woman crushing a large spider. The idea that the spider is an unwitting pawn in Anthony's selfish gratification is important, as he is also shown to treat his wife with similar disinterest and disregard throughout the film.

It's immediately after Adam's choice to attend the same club that Helen's transformation occurs. This indicates that Adam's choice is responsible for the transformation, which acts as a visual representation of his own attitude toward her. Though it's a bold choice from director Denis Villeneuve, it communicates the point in a very literal way: in choosing to pursue his own curiosity, Adam disregards Helen just as Anthony did.

In showing that she is little more than an object to him, something to be used and discarded, she transforms into just that, visually signifying that Enemy's events have come full circle. The spider is also relevant to the idea of patterns forming naturally out of chaos, something also evidenced by the web pattern used to obscure Anthony's face after the car crash.

Enemy Is About The Patterns Created By Human Nature

Adam Becomes Anthony In The End

Beyond using Jake Gyllenhaal's character's spider fascination to represent patterns created by nature and the subconscious, Enemy thoroughly explores the idea of human nature and how it can dictate an individual's choices. Though Adam starts the film as a more quiet and reserved character, by exploring his own curiosity about Anthony, he unwittingly puts himself on the same path. Anthony is also shown to be helpless to control his less pleasant impulses, treating those around him without any real respect or consideration, and Adam slowly transitions into similar behavior in the film's final scene.

The idea that history can repeat itself is explicitly mentioned earlier in the film, as Adam lectures his class on exactly that topic. That he himself is seemingly an expert in patterns formed throughout history foreshadows the film's ending in a brilliantly subtle way that makes Enemy one of the most understated of Denis Villeneuve's movies. Adam beginning to exhibit the same behaviors as Anthony is proof of this cycle, and Anthony's fate hints that Adam is likely to meet the same unpleasant end if he cannot break free of the pattern.

Jake Gyllenhaal Sees The Enemy As A Dream

The Actor Has His Own View On The Complex Finale

Given the demanding task of his dual performance, it is not surprising that Gyllenhaal was very invested in this movie and has his own thoughts about explaining Enemy's ending. In an interview for the movie (via Independent), Gyllenhaal explained:

“This movie hopefully feels like you’re dreaming. It’s an exploration of the unconscious."

The actor also spoke about his interest in playing complicated characters which are seen in Gyllenhaal's best movies, including Enemy. The dreamlike quality of the movie is evident, and it suggests that it is the look at a man's guilty conscience in how he treats his wife.

What Enemy's Ending Really Means

The Shocking Ending Reveals Layers To The Story

Enemy's ending is unforgettable, mostly because Helen's transformation into a giant spider is so unexpected that it demands careful consideration. However, one of the main things that the ending establishes is that it doesn't actually matter if Anthony and Adam were the same person all along, and that what's more important is that Adam examines his own behavior before the cycle begins again. Much like Fight Club's ending, Enemy ends with what was once two characters suddenly becoming one, but it's far less explicit as to what exactly that means.

Ultimately, Enemy's examination of patterns of human behavior speaks for itself. Adam finds himself stepping into Anthony's life out of innocent curiosity, but it takes a more sinister turn his curiosity renders him helpless to escape. This idea of unconscious patterns and cycles and how harmful they can be is central, and Enemy's ending hints that Adam isn't able to escape from his own. It's thought-provoking, somewhat bleak, and incredibly shocking, but that's exactly what makes Enemy such a rewarding experience.

What Denis Villeneuve Said About The Enemy Ending

The Director Is Not Willing To Give Easy Answers

The best person to answer the true purpose behind the Enemy ending is clearly Denis Villeneuve himself. However, the filmmaker has rarely spoken about the movie, seeming to prefer to keep the ambiguity of it intact. Similar to the ending of Inception, Enemy's conclusion works better without concrete answers and with the audience themselves forced to come up with their own ideas. However, that has not stopped people from asking for more explanation from Villeneuve, who offered this small tease (via Yahoo!):

"It's an exploration inside yourself. Sometimes you have compulsions that you can't control coming from the subconscious… they are the dictator inside ourselves."

While Villeneuve's words are purposely vague, there is some hint that backs up the idea that Anthony and Adam are the same person while also adding more context to Jake Gyllenhaal's notion of the movie being like a dream. Anthony could be the "dictator" of Adam's own psyche, with his subconscious pushing him towards his darker desires and taking away some of the control he previously had.

However, there is also an interpretation that the subconscious is behind Helen's spider transformation in Enemy with the look of acknowledgment on Gyllenhaal's face in that final moment perhaps indicating that he recognizes he's gone too far down this path.

How The Enemy Ending Was Received

The Bold Ending Received A Mixed Response From Critics

With such an ambiguous and challenging ending, the critical reception to Enemy could have been quite divisive. While Enemy does rank lowest among Denis Villeneuve's movies on Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a respectable score of 72%. However, as that reception suggests, the reaction to the ending was quite mixed. There are some who felt Enemy's ambiguity in its final moments highlighted the fact it is an inaccessible movie made with the filmmaker's own ideas that are unclear to the audience.

Time's critic Richard Corliss commended the four main actors but felt that wasn't enough to save the movie:

These four paramedic performers can’t breathe coherent life into a movie that has high ambitions but ends up Strictly Film School.

There were other critics who itted to Enemy's ending being a bit of a mystery that was hard to decipher but suggested that the atmospheric tone of the entire movie allows for some ambiguity in the interesting yet flawed cinematic experience. The Hollywood Reporter's review was decidedly mixed, stating:

As hauntingly strange as it is inconclusive and frustrating, Enemy, directed by Denis Villeneuve (Incendies), is one of the more head-scratching additions to the doppelganger genre.

However, some critics were overly impressed with the bold and impactful final scene of Enemy. David Ehrlich had high praise for it, saying:

Denis Villeneuve’s “Enemy” might have the scariest ending of any film ever made.

How The Enemy Ending Compares To Other Villeneuve Movies

Prisoners, Arrival, & Blade Runner 2049

When looking at Denis Villeneuve's words, he said this was a movie where someone's inner being comes to the surface. With that in mind, the ending has a strong similarity to other films by the auteur director. In Prisoners, there were also two people who were very different, similar to The Enemy. Paul Dano's Alex was a kidnapper, while Hugh Jackman was a man whose daughter was kidnapped. By the movie's end, Jackman's Keller is just as evil and vindictive as Paul, allowing his inner anger to rise to the surface and turn him evil.

In Arrival, the story was very different. On the surface, the idea was that linguist Louise Banks was called in to speak to aliens who had arrived on Earth and decipher their messages. Just like in The Enemy, this plot was just there to drive the story, and the actual theme was Louise discovering who she is on the inside and what she is willing to do to achieve her dreams. Ultimately, Louise makes a difficult decision and sacrifices her happiness to allow life's direction to continue despite learning about the tragedies that will happen in her future.

An even bigger similarity comes in the movie Blade Runner 2049. Like The Enemy, where no one knows if the ending wraps things up with a bow, Blade Runner 2049 has Ryan Gosling's replicant-hunting replicant K trying to figure out his place in the world. K is unsure about his identity throughout most of the movie and that of the "woman" he loves. This causes an internal conflict in both lead characters that is dealt with in symbolism. It is a trait of Villeneuve's movies, which always makes them more interested in deeper meanings than making things easy for the viewer.