Unless I missed it, the credits don't acknowledge Dostoevsky's novella of the same name as the source of the story. This is odd, since the movie tracks the major plot points of the book pretty closely, almost up to the end. What's interesting is that the objections raised against the novella in 1840 are pretty much the same as the objections raised against the movie today.
1. The movie is overly derivative of Terry Gilliam's Brazil. In 1840, critics complained that The Double was overly derivative of Nikolai Gogol's stories, especially Diary of a Madman.
2. The story lacks variety and goes nowhere. Both book and movie were hit with this criticism. The book was also accused of being too long. (When Dostoyevsky reissued it, he made cuts - though maybe not enough.)
3. The plot makes no sense, because at times the doppelgänger appears to be a private hallucination and at other times he seems to interact with other people. This is true of both versions. If there's any way to make sense of the story, we must assume that the main character is hallucinating much of what happens, including the actions of the people around him (his boss, his coworkers, and in the case of the movie, his would-be girlfriend).
Finally, the consensus of opinion about both book and movie is pretty similar - an interesting but flawed effort that's too off-putting to completely hold the reader's or viewer's interest, but which shows enough talent to point the way to more successful work in the future. That's my opinion, too.
Even so, the movie is worth a look for those who've read the original story.
1. The movie is overly derivative of Terry Gilliam's Brazil. In 1840, critics complained that The Double was overly derivative of Nikolai Gogol's stories, especially Diary of a Madman.
2. The story lacks variety and goes nowhere. Both book and movie were hit with this criticism. The book was also accused of being too long. (When Dostoyevsky reissued it, he made cuts - though maybe not enough.)
3. The plot makes no sense, because at times the doppelgänger appears to be a private hallucination and at other times he seems to interact with other people. This is true of both versions. If there's any way to make sense of the story, we must assume that the main character is hallucinating much of what happens, including the actions of the people around him (his boss, his coworkers, and in the case of the movie, his would-be girlfriend).
Finally, the consensus of opinion about both book and movie is pretty similar - an interesting but flawed effort that's too off-putting to completely hold the reader's or viewer's interest, but which shows enough talent to point the way to more successful work in the future. That's my opinion, too.
Even so, the movie is worth a look for those who've read the original story.