The Double – review

The Double is Richard Aeoyade’s second film after the hugely likeable coming of age comedy drama ’Submarine’ in 2010. Jesse Eisenberg plays a downtrodden clerk inhabiting a claustrophobic and crepuscular authoritarian world who meets and then ‘befriends’ his own doppelgänger with increasingly alarming results.

There are bleakly comedic moments coupled with some memorable visual flourishes that add to the growing sense of disquiet. Excellent central performances from Eisenberg and Mia Wasikowska are ably supported by a fine ensemble cast, including a fine sprinkling of neat cameo turns.

Yet despite all that The Double never really comes together perfectly as a whole. It’s far easier to admire than really warm to or love, and I really wanted to love it. Perhaps it’s precisely that awkward sense of disengagement so effectively rendered that leaves you feeling a little detached from the whole experience – as Eisenberg’s character memorably points out “I don’t know how to be myself. It’s like I’m permanently outside myself. Like, like you could push your hands straight through me if you wanted to.”

The Double is an inventive and darkly comic portrait of a man descending into psychological chaos. It’s thoughtful, smart and worth 92 minutes of your time.

Wilco at the Roundhouse: not quite the Whole Love but definitely a Shot in the Arm

The gag doing the rounds before Wilco’s two night weekend stint at Camden’s Roundhouse was about the length of the queue for the Gents’ being longer than that for the Ladies’. You see the Chicago alt-rock indie stalwarts are to some the very definition of a ‘bloke’s band’: earnest, slightly well-worn middle-aged chaps who play guitars. For the record – and for the chance to lazily generalise – the majority of  the audience are almost indistinguishable in appearance from the band, a legion of  black and plaid clad pilgrims nodding sagely whilst stroking their collective beards (some flecked with more grey than they’d like).

An aside: Some scowl menacingly at anyone who wants to move around beyond their allotted space (at a free standing gig!), which is not so much intimidating as mildly irritating.

Wilco have built a considerable reputation by taking a fairly formal alt country-meets-indie template and bending it artfully into more interesting shapes, crafting a fairly unique sonic landscape that at its best effortlessly meshes traditionalism with experimentation. This means on the same album you can hear influences from across a wide musical spectrum such as Neil Young, the Beatles, Neu!, Can, Gram Parsons and REM. It shouldn’t really work but it very often does, and on occasion it’s a sensationally successful combination.

This being my first Wilco gig I knew only to expect a longish set culled from eight albums dating back to the mid-90s, I’d also noticed from a scan of set lists posted on the internet that such a big back catalogue to plunder from means no two live gigs are the same. They’re perfectly happy to mix it up and tinker with song orders and throw in a wild card.

Saturday night relied heavily on a backbone of songs from the last two albums The Whole Love, and Wilco (the album). I’ve not had long enough to familarise myself with the new album but the electronica wig out that is the climax of Art of Almost bodes well. It’s a disappointment then that it is very close to a highlight as the rest of the set mines a far more traditional and less ambitious vein. What’s more for me we don’t get enough from their near mythical 2001 magnum opus Yankee Hotel Foxtrot for me, no Jesus Etc or I am Trying to Break Your Heart, No One Wing either, a favourite of mine from Wilco (The Album) which were all apparently aired the previous night – which won’t have bothered the Wilco faithful who will have bagged tickets for both nights no doubt!  That said an energetic War on War and a rousing & euphoric A Shot in the Arm lift proceedings towards the encore which features a delightful cameo from Nick Lowe who belts through his brilliant 1979 hit Cruel to be Kind.

Quibbles aside you’ll be hard pushed to see a display of such exceptional musicianship all year: Nels Cline does more interesting things with guitars than any man looking like the stern curator of a viking museum in rural Sweden has any right to, and Jeff Tweedy, the coolest forty-something straggly-haired hobo in North London this weekend, has a voice that is reassuring, warm and with just the right hint of fragility.

Wilco’s willingness to push boundaries and twist genres is anchored to a unswerving skill with melody and song craft. It’s a hugely winning combination that can thrill devotees and new fans alike. Perhaps my hopes for something truly great were a little overambitious, in the end it was merely just very good – but on this performance I wouldn’t miss the opportunity to see them again which means of course there’ll always be next time.