In the spirit of supreme generosity I will assume that the source material, a novel by Libero Bigiaretti, is written well, and that the incoherence, incohesiveness, and sloppiness of the film is owed entirely to its writers and director Romolo Guerrieri. This would be laughable if it weren't so laborious to watch. The dialogue is terrible (the best lines in the film are nothing more than a quotation of Allen Ginsberg), characters are just poorly written all around with little if any rhyme or reason, and the scene writing is equal parts scattered, senselessly melodramatic, and sometimes simply pointless. Plot development comes off as meager and tiresomely haphazard; somehow one still manages to glean a vague, loose sense of story - though it's not convincing, and just altogether weak. It certainly doesn't help that the editing is so needlessly curt and choppy, with sequencing being particularly rotten. This is true not least as the picture semi-regularly bounces us back to the opening scene, a man dying in a garage, as he recalls the recent events we're otherwise watching; such back and forth is absolutely unnecessary, and serves only to draw one out of the viewing experience. Let's not beat around the bush: this is just rotten.
Carlo Carlini's cinematography is generally blandly suitable, though in some instances decidedly overzealous. Where Guerrieri's direction is concerned, meanwhile, the first words to come to mind are "dull" and "unpracticed." I suppose Armando Trovajoli's compositions for he score show some promise - or at least, they might if they weren't so glaringly repetitive. There aren't that many distinct themes on hand, and in fact it at least feels as though there are only two that get used over and over again, with a single unique theme to show up in the last ten to fifteen minutes. Every now and again it seems like the cast is performing well, appropriate to the needs of any given moment, yet mostly they don't. In fairness, considering how shoddy the writing and direction are, it might not be their fault. As if to emphasize the point, a little after the one-hour mark there's a scene where Lucia asks Giovanni if he's still mad at her. Thanks to the awful writing we have no idea what quarrel she might be referring to; thanks to the floundering acting, it doesn't seem like either person cares about the conversation at all.
Oh, and about that "vague, loose sense of story" one may possibly ascertain. Elsewhere on The Internet one can read a synopsis of the plot of 'The double' and gain definite understanding of the tale that Guerrieri is trying to impart with at best extremely mixed results. I wouldn't recommend it, however, for when all is said and done, the narrative at large is plainly insipid, all but amateurish. Any amorphous feelings of tension that might kind of sort of manifest in the last act are squashed, to the point that we are made to feel like fools, for how nonsensical (and, of course, poorly written and executed) the ultimate revelations are. I repeat my hope that this feature is not a true reflection of the novel it's based on, for if it is, that speaks very, very poorly to author Bigiaretti as much as all involved in this production. Well, maybe not all, as one might say the crew behind the scenes put in good work. "Might" is the furthest I can get with such evaluation, however, for at best this is such a chore that it's impossible to care about such contributions; at worst, one might just say that their work was just as putrid as everything else here.
I don't care who you are. I don't care what your interests are when it comes to cinema. There is no reason for you to watch this. It's among the clumsiest, most gawky, actively aggravating movies I've ever watched. I may, in fact, need to reassess my ranking of the worst movies I've ever seen, because 'The double' is indisputably below the bottom of the barrel, and countable among the lowest of all company. It makes 2019's 'A karate Christmas miracle' look passable by comparison, and The Beatles' woe-begotten TV movie 'Magical Mystery Tour' seem fun. I feel like less of a person just for the fact of having wasted my time on this. Please do not make the same mistake that I have. Avoid this, forever.
Carlo Carlini's cinematography is generally blandly suitable, though in some instances decidedly overzealous. Where Guerrieri's direction is concerned, meanwhile, the first words to come to mind are "dull" and "unpracticed." I suppose Armando Trovajoli's compositions for he score show some promise - or at least, they might if they weren't so glaringly repetitive. There aren't that many distinct themes on hand, and in fact it at least feels as though there are only two that get used over and over again, with a single unique theme to show up in the last ten to fifteen minutes. Every now and again it seems like the cast is performing well, appropriate to the needs of any given moment, yet mostly they don't. In fairness, considering how shoddy the writing and direction are, it might not be their fault. As if to emphasize the point, a little after the one-hour mark there's a scene where Lucia asks Giovanni if he's still mad at her. Thanks to the awful writing we have no idea what quarrel she might be referring to; thanks to the floundering acting, it doesn't seem like either person cares about the conversation at all.
Oh, and about that "vague, loose sense of story" one may possibly ascertain. Elsewhere on The Internet one can read a synopsis of the plot of 'The double' and gain definite understanding of the tale that Guerrieri is trying to impart with at best extremely mixed results. I wouldn't recommend it, however, for when all is said and done, the narrative at large is plainly insipid, all but amateurish. Any amorphous feelings of tension that might kind of sort of manifest in the last act are squashed, to the point that we are made to feel like fools, for how nonsensical (and, of course, poorly written and executed) the ultimate revelations are. I repeat my hope that this feature is not a true reflection of the novel it's based on, for if it is, that speaks very, very poorly to author Bigiaretti as much as all involved in this production. Well, maybe not all, as one might say the crew behind the scenes put in good work. "Might" is the furthest I can get with such evaluation, however, for at best this is such a chore that it's impossible to care about such contributions; at worst, one might just say that their work was just as putrid as everything else here.
I don't care who you are. I don't care what your interests are when it comes to cinema. There is no reason for you to watch this. It's among the clumsiest, most gawky, actively aggravating movies I've ever watched. I may, in fact, need to reassess my ranking of the worst movies I've ever seen, because 'The double' is indisputably below the bottom of the barrel, and countable among the lowest of all company. It makes 2019's 'A karate Christmas miracle' look passable by comparison, and The Beatles' woe-begotten TV movie 'Magical Mystery Tour' seem fun. I feel like less of a person just for the fact of having wasted my time on this. Please do not make the same mistake that I have. Avoid this, forever.