Sev­ered, Reprint­ed, Imper­son­at­ed: The Rise of Cinema’s ​‘Work Double’

When the cubi­cles are claus­tro­pho­bic and the dead-end job a drag, it’s only nat­ur­al to glance long­ing­ly at the exit sign. But what if the work is all-con­sum­ing, or worse; the con­di­tion upon your very exis­tence is pred­i­cat­ed? Not hav­ing a life out­side of work is the rue­ful refrain of any har­ried employ­ee, but this year, it’s also found inven­tive, if chill­ing expres­sion in a slew of high-con­cept films and shows. These reflect a cul­ture in which the ​“hus­tle” and ​“grind” have become pop­u­lar buzz­words while the real­i­ty is far more bleak: end­less toil for cor­po­ra­tions that see you as instant­ly replaceable.

Cue the work dou­ble. In the absur­dist com­e­dy Seri­ous Peo­ple, a pop­u­lar music video direc­tor whose work repeat­ed­ly encroach­es onto his per­son­al life even­tu­al­ly hires a dop­pel­gänger to work in his stead so he can be present for the birth of his first child. By con­trast, the cor­po­rate employ­ee pro­tag­o­nist of thriller series Sev­er­ance finds a dev­as­tat­ing per­son­al loss so dis­rup­tive to his work life, he under­goes a sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dure to split his con­scious­ness in two in the hope of some respite. Work is the only rea­son his ​‘innie’, who spends his whole life trapped in the office, exists at all. Like­wise for Mick­ey Barnes (Robert Pat­tin­son) of Bong Joon Ho’s sci-fi com­e­dy Mick­ey 17. As his space colony’s des­ig­nat­ed ​‘Expend­able’, he’s ​‘reprint­ed’ over and over again to be sent out on sui­cide mis­sions or used for med­ical exper­i­ments. It’s being left for dead by his crew­mates that inad­ver­tent­ly leads to the cre­ation of an addi­tion­al Mick­ey (des­ig­nat­ed 18).

In these titles, the work self promis­es to be an improve­ment on the orig­i­nal, either more knowl­edge­able as in Mick­ey 17 (in which each iter­a­tion is pro­grammed with the cumu­la­tive expe­ri­ence of all his pre­de­ces­sors), younger and more allur­ing as in last year’s The Sub­stance, or with­out their original’s emo­tion­al bag­gage weigh­ing them down, as in Sev­er­ance. And it’s only nat­ur­al to want the best when the stakes are this high – a music video for the Cana­di­an rap­per Drake, human set­tle­ment on a new plan­et, ​“one of the great­est moments in the his­to­ry of this plan­et,” as a char­ac­ter describes the ​“mys­te­ri­ous and impor­tant” work in Sev­er­ance. Each of the orig­i­nals agree to a new self to escape an old wound: Sev­er­ance​’s Mark Scout (Adam Scott), his grief, Mick­ey, the wrath of his psy­chot­ic debt col­lec­tor, and, though in Seri­ous Peo­ple, Pasqual’s (Pasqual Gutier­rez) inten­tion is osten­si­bly to spend more time with his fam­i­ly, his wife sharply sug­gests that what he’s try­ing to do instead is out­run his own irrel­e­vance. Why wait to age out of his career when he could just replace him­self first?

Even before he signs over his life, how­ev­er, Pasqual wor­ries about los­ing it. Hav­ing read a study about ​‘amne­si­ac fathers’ (men who for­get who they were before hav­ing a baby), he fears ​“split­ting” into a whole new per­son. For­get­ful­ness is a con­stant threat in the work dou­ble uni­verse, even if it appears as a bliss­ful reprieve at first. If Mark will­ing­ly opts to sup­press his mem­o­ry – a choice still cru­el­ly weaponised against him by the cor­po­ra­tion he works at – the dele­tion of Mickey’s is a men­ac­ing ulti­ma­tum, a way his supe­ri­ors keep him in line. Even so, the past still has the pow­er to pierce. In one scene, he remem­bers, with crush­ing clar­i­ty, the child­hood grief of los­ing his mother.

It’s unnerv­ing­ly easy to imper­son­ate anoth­er. Seri­ous Peo­ple opens with a sea of Lati­no men audi­tion­ing to be the very man cast­ing them; they’re all dressed alike, in black, their answers blend into each oth­er. When Pasqual zeroes in on body­builder Miguel (Miguel Huer­ta), he gives him a crash course in music video direc­tion; though Miguel knows noth­ing of actu­al tech­nique, he learns the indus­try-spe­cif­ic lin­go that will dupe oth­ers on set into believ­ing he does. That Pasqual is played by Pasqual Gutier­rez, who co-wrote and co-direct­ed the film; his wife Chris­tine Yuan plays the character’s wife Chris­tine. The film ends with pho­tos of them and their daugh­ter, born just after shoot­ing wrapped, blur­ring the lines between reel and real. Mean­while, each new ver­sion of Mick­ey has the pre­vi­ous one’s mem­o­ries and per­son­al­i­ty traits down­loaded into their brain. And in Sev­er­ance Sea­son 2, heiress Hele­na Eagan (Britt Low­er) goes under­cov­er at her com­pa­ny, pass­ing off as her sev­ered coun­ter­part Helly (also Low­er) to spy on the oth­er work­ers. Even innie Mark, the man Helly’s in love with, can’t tell them apart. This real­i­sa­tion dev­as­tates Helly when she returns – the one per­son who’d real­ly seen her for who she is now hasn’t looked past the exte­ri­or at all.

A blink­ered vision is yet anoth­er symp­tom of a larg­er cul­tur­al malaise. While Pasqual’s scheme is framed as hare­brained and kooky, it’s revealed to be root­ed in his very real expe­ri­ences with racism – if even his cowork­ers some­times can’t dis­tin­guish him from his cre­ative part­ner RJ (RJ Sanchez), anoth­er Mex­i­can man, who’s to say they’d notice a total stranger tak­ing his place? Even Mickey’s ​‘best friend’ Timo (Steven Yeun) isn’t even sure which iter­a­tion he’s left for dead at the start of the film – which is appar­ent­ly fine, because ​‘expend­ables’ can be exploit­ed for ​“eco­nom­ic pur­pos­es.” Mick­ey is a hap­less lab rat, in the same way Hele­na likens the innies to ani­mals in Sev­er­ance.

This ten­den­cy to view peo­ple not for who they are but sole­ly for the ser­vices they can pro­vide makes the work dou­ble trend inex­tri­ca­ble from the all-per­va­sive­ness of cap­i­tal­ism, in which human­i­ty is dis­re­gard­ed in favour of robot­ic effi­cien­cy and bod­ies are expend­able. Even death doesn’t ensure a reprieve in Mick­ey 17, in which a new body is rushed out and sent right back to work. While the dou­bling tech in that film and Sev­er­ance is either pio­neered or run by dubi­ous men with sin­is­ter aims, and those exper­i­ment­ed on expe­ri­ence great pain or even­tu­al death, Seri­ous Peo­ple makes it clear why some­one would active­ly wel­come a dou­ble — a sin­gle gig could net a direc­tor as much as $250k. For Chris­tine, pass­ing up one such job to focus on her preg­nan­cy is a no-brain­er: could any of us say we’d do the same with­out even the slight­est hesitation?

But in defi­ance of these dehu­man­iz­ing cor­po­rate envi­ron­ments, the work dou­bles dis­play dis­tinct per­son­al­i­ties; though they look sim­i­lar to the orig­i­nal, they couldn’t be eas­i­er to tell apart. Miguel might adopt his mentor’s wardrobe and par­rot his words, but he lacks Pasqual’s insight into the art of direc­tion. And despite them being print­ed from the same tem­plate, each iter­a­tion of Mickey’s per­son­al­i­ty varies slight­ly. Mick­ey 3 was clingy, Mick­ey 5 was inde­ci­sive and Mick­ey 18 has the steel and spine his pre­de­ces­sor lacks. On the sev­ered floor, out­ie Irving’s (John Tur­tur­ro) metic­u­lous research into the com­pa­ny, so as to expose its machi­na­tions, man­i­fests as innie Irv’s idol­a­try for its founder. Innie Dylan (Zach Cher­ry) achieves the suc­cess out­ie drifter Dylan has long sought. And Helly, even while trapped, loves and is loved – a free­dom that Hele­na, bound by the rigid rules of her cult-like com­pa­ny, is yet to experience.

Expect­ing an imposter to fit seam­less­ly into your life is a fol­ly: dou­bles are always dis­rup­tive. Miguel is rude and abra­sive, full of enti­tle­ment for a life he’s mere­ly bor­row­ing. Pos­ing as Pasqual, his cocky pos­tur­ing threat­ens to ruin his mentor’s rep­u­ta­tion instead. Mick­ey 18’s imme­di­ate instinct is to kill Timo for betray­ing him, in con­trast to his predecessor’s door­mat-like accep­tance of his ill-treat­ment. Hot-head­ed, he storms off to com­mit a polit­i­cal assas­si­na­tion in anoth­er scene with­out car­ing about the reper­cus­sions. Helly, on the oth­er hand, is delib­er­ate in her attempts to harm her­self; she knows doing so will also harm her cap­tor, Helena.

Hor­ror movies are dot­ted with dop­pel­gangers that ter­ror­ize their orig­i­nal by whol­ly tak­ing con­trol of their life, but in the work dou­ble sub­genre, it’s almost a com­fort to let some­one else slip into your shoes. That doesn’t mean there aren’t moments of envy, like The Sub­stance​’s aging star Elis­a­beth Sparkle (Demi Moore) watch­ing as her younger iteration’s (Mar­garet Qual­ley) fame eclipse hers, or Mick­ey 17 watch­ing his girl­friend flirt with the 18^th ver­sion of him instead. Just as Elis­a­beth becomes a recluse, vic­ar­i­ous­ly liv­ing through the woman killing her, Mark’s refusal to work through the grief he feels trapped in place by only ensures that his work self is held cap­tive instead. Sim­i­lar­ly, the very machine keep­ing that allows Mick­ey to keep from con­fronting (and accept­ing) the final­i­ty of death also binds him to a life of servi­tude. The premis­es of ​‘work dou­ble’ films and shows might seem far-fetched, but they pose a very real, cut­ting ques­tion: in con­struct­ing and refin­ing the best ver­sions of your­self, what do you stand to lose?