TIFF 2013 - The Double and The Invisible Woman

Jesse Eisenberg plays a dual role in The Double, both as the meek apologetic worker bee Simon and his sociopathic doppelganger James who slowly takes over his life.  And he's great as both of them, but the movie may have been a bit weird for my taste.  Based on a Dostoevsky novella, and set in some strange version of the past, the movie explores the themes of paranoia,  identity and longing for a connection.  Mia Wasikowsa (Eisenberg's real life girlfriend) shows up as the unattainable object of Simon's desire only to be used and abused by James, and Wallace Shawn is entertaining as the boss who humiliates Simon on a regular basis while praising everything that James does (which, of course, he's stealing from Simon).

More than worth the price of admission was the witty, entertaining and very funny introduction and Q&A with the film's director Richard Ayoade.   Best known for the UK television series The IT Crowd and possibly his acting in last summer's The Watch, Ayoade previously came to TIFF with his directorial debut Submarine and provided some high quality entertainment for the crowd.  Extremely self deprecating and quick witted, his commentary on people leaving the theatre (likely on their way to their next movie) was interspersed with actual answers about the motivation and process of making the film.   He even managed to lighten up Jesse Eisenberg :-)

Movie Grade: B- Q&A: A+

Ralph Fiennes directs and stars as Charles Dickens in The Invisible Woman,  the story of Dickens' secret mistress, the young Nelly Ternan played by Felicity Jones.  It's a pretty basic story, older rich man gets involved with young beautiful girl made all the more interesting by the fact that he was able to keep the relationship somewhat secret as such a public figure.  The story is told from Nelly's perspective and in flashbacks from her current life as a married schoolmarm in the late 1800s.  There were several really lovely scenes in the film, and Fiennes and Jones are both quite good in their roles, as is Joanna Scanlan as Mrs. Dickens but the movie was a bit slow in parts for me.

Fiennes seemed quite emotional both introducing the film and speaking about it afterwards, and gave credit to many people for helping him get to the finished product.  Jones charmingly spoke about what it was like to be directed by Fiennes (mostly like being directed by Dickens), and how making this movie made her look at the female characters in Dickens' novels differently.  They both spoke about the idea of 'the invisible woman' and how the film contains several depictions of female characters that could be described that way.  They were both quite eloquent and charming.

Movie Grade: B