The last time we reported on a trailer for Richard Ayoade’s film, The Double, it was mentioned that “if Ayoade’s film is a comedy, the trailer doesn’t do a whole lot to show.” Well, this new trailer does show off some of the film’s darkly comical moments, but with a very strong emphasis on “dark.” The movie is based on a novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky after all – think Franz Kafka crossed with the Coen Brothers, if every film they made was exactly like Barton Fink.
Although this trailer – made to promote the film’s U.K. release – might by film’s strangest yet, it’s also the first to actually give some details about the plot. If you just watched the past trailers, and read no promotional material or did any research you’d justifiably have no frickin’ idea what’s going on.
Now, considering the film (at least the trailer) has a carnivalesque feel to it (and what decent adaptation of Russian literature wouldn’t?) the proceeding description of what to expect in the trailer (and film) will be relayed as though it were an advertisement for a carnival.
SEE! Bizarrely uncomfortable train rides! SEE! Amazingly oppressive office jobs! SEE! A doppelganger nobody appears to notice! SEE! Jesse Eisenberg pull a knife on himself! SEE! Jesse Eisenberg channel Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces! HEAR! A monotone European woman repeat herself! HEAR! A Japanese song that oddly enough does not feel out of place!
You can SEE! more of this when The Double opens May 9th.