I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: KIM JUNG MI-“The Sun” (1973).

This song, along with a few other unexpected tracks accompany the score for The Double which was composed by Andrew Hewitt.  Kim Jung Mi is a South Korean singer (singing in Korean) and this track is hers from the 1970s.

Interestingly, the melody is conventionally Western (played on acoustic guitars), but as I said the vocals are all in Korean.  The song has a 70s folk (with orchestra) feel, and while there are a lot of Westernisms about the song, it still sounds “foreign.”

The song is pretty and eventually builds to adding some strings.  However at nearly 7 minutes without a lot of change (lots of La La Las, maybe like “Hey Jude”?), it’s a bit (well, a lot) too long.

[READ: June 13, 2014] The Double

I saw this book at work and immediately grabbed it because I love Richard Ayoade (Moss on The IT Crowd).  I didn’t even know what this was, I just had to see it.  Then I saw that it was that it a play and I was intrigued, especially when I saw that Chris O’Dowd (also from The IT Crowd) was in it.

Then I read the introductions by Korine and Ayoade and learned that this is actually a film.  When I looked online I saw that it opened in limited release last week.  Holy cow!  The film stars Jessee Eisenberg and Mia Wasikowska and also features Wallace Shawn, Noah Taylor and J Mascis (as a janitor).

The story is based on Dostoevsky’s short story “The Double” (so you know it’s not especially cheery).  And, although I assumed it would still be funny (given Ayoade’s credentials), it is not as funny (at least in print) as one might expect.  The other weird thing was that I kept picturing Moss as the lead character (some lines seem very Moss-like), so should I ever see this it will be weird to hear the lines coming from Eisenberg.

The basic premise of the movie/book is that Simon James is a kind of nonentity.  He has been working the same job for seven years, but no one seems to recognize him.  When he loses his office badge, the security guard makes him sign in every day until he can get a new one.  His boss ignores his ideas and gets his name wrong.  There’s also a woman, Hannah, who he really likes; however, he doesn’t have the courage to speak to her.  He goes to her wing of the building all the time but never says much to her.   Although Simon is a sad sack, he’s also a  little creepy.  He spies on Hannah (they live in facing apartments) with a telescope (although he never sees anything untoward, he mostly just wants to look at her).

Then one day a guy who looks exactly like him shows up.  His name is James Simon.  He has charisma and charm and within a day everyone knows his name.  He starts taking credit for Simon’s work, he starts schmoozing with the bosses.  He is, in a word, insufferable.  And he actually makes Simon look worse than he originally looked.

James is a sexual dynamo, and he offers to help Simon with Hannah.  And at first it seems like he is really helping.  But soon enough, he starts making the moves on her himself.  And all bets are off.  Soon, James starts bossing Simon around, even using Simon’s apartment for his own conquests.

Then something unusual happens that shows that the connection between Simon and James may be more than either of them realize.

This story has all the trappings of farce, but it is actually quite dark.  There is humor, yes, but the ending doesn’t really seem to play out for laughs.

Mind you, this very clearly says it was the shooting script and that the final movie may differ.  I don’t imagine it would differ much, but a little editing (and good performances) could make the movie seems funnier than the script did.  I am curious to see this film and I wonder if it’s any different from what I just read.