The Double is based on Fyodor Dostoyesky’s novel of the same name. A lonely office worker Simon (Jesse Eisenberg), marooned in the same job in the same company for the past seven years, becomes infatuated with a pretty, equally lonely office worker, Hannah (Mia Wasikowska), but is so socially inept that he’s helpless to communicate with her, as he is with anyone else. Ayoade approaches this well-trodden premise with style over substance. The Double is a cinematic orchestra; the absurdist melodrama is constantly punctuated by a musical score that ranges from classical to otherworldly synth. Visually, it’s a weird and wonderful bag of tricks that draws on some of the finest, most Kafkaesque auteurs. The setting is a Gilliam-like bureaucratic dystopia, certain shots are straight out of Hitchcock, while others are pure Polanski. The Double particularly recalls one of my all-time favourite films, Roman Polanski’s The Tenant. Both plots deal with themes of persecution, doppelgangers and loneliness, and certain moments are virtually identica; the double waving back at Simon from the building opposite, Simon being served the wrong drink in the cafe, the POV shot of the protagonist’s leering persecutors looking to get their hands on him. Eisenberg even looks like The Tenant’s hapless hero, played by Polanski. It’s no coincidence that Polanski made a doomed effort to bring The Double to screen in the 90s, starring John Travolta and Isabelle Adjani. Where Ayoade’s script lacks profundity, it compensates in brilliant moments of black comedy that paint a picture of a weird, off-kilter world; a world where two suicide watchmen casually jot Simon down as a ‘Maybe’, and staff and residents at a nursing home are inexplicably armed with lethal weapons. The murky visual palette, occasionally broken up by Argento-esque saturations of colour, enhances the oddness. It’s just a shame that, as with the plot and characters, we never explore the world in much depth. Eisenberg is well fitted to his dual role. He absorbs every door shutting in Simon’s face and every veiled insult pushed his way with quiet bewilderment. As James, he draws on his own performance as Mark Zuckerberg from The Social Network: still nerdy, but with a self-assured swagger. The supporting cast – including Noah Taylor, Wallace Shawn and Cathy Moriarty – do a great job of filling up the hostile, comical world. The Double clearly draws on other films out of a love for the medium. Ayoade is a director experimenting with his craft, and having a merry old time doing it. The Double is a bit too intertextual for anyone to start using the term ‘Ayoade-esque’ (despite the term having a great ring to it) any time soon, and its overstated style only skims the surface of its psychoanalytical subject matter, but  it does all add up to make one of the most superficial, odd and watchable films of recent years. The Double is out on Blu-ray and DVD now. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.