LONG SYNOPSIS FROM PRODUCTION NOTES

Simon James (Jesse Eisenberg) is a timid soul who lives alone, suffers an awkward relationship with his
unsympathetic mother, and labours virtually unnoticed at his deadening office job. Starting a conversation
with his attractive colleague and neighbour Hannah (Mia Wasikowska) is almost beyond his capabilities,
though he does sometimes observe her from his apartment window through a telescope. The threat of
vanishing completely seems to stalk Simon. His own mother has trouble remembering who he is when he
visits her care home; the security guard at his office refuses, day after day, to recognise him; and the area in
which he lives is beset by suicides (Officers investigating these mark Simon down as a maybe). Im
permanently outside myself, Simon observes. You could put your hand straight through me. Others
agree: a colleague tells him that hes pretty unnoticeable a bit of a non-person, and one of the fellow
residents of his mothers care home tells him Youre not right. This resident, however, also provides him with
the odd gift of a knife and the enigmatic advice to make the cut deep.
Theres reason for Simon to feel even more outside himself but also a glint of hope when a new arrival
joins his workplace. James Simon (Eisenberg again in a double role) is, as his name suggests, Simons mirror
image: ostensibly the same, with an identical physical appearance, but with diametrically opposite
character traits. James is as confident at work as he is with women: a philanderer, a rakish risk taker and the
life and soul of every party to which his meek lookalike has never been able to get himself invited. James
also moves in across the street from Simon, within the sightlines of his telescope.
Initially James seems to be a source of guidance for Simon, advising him on his romantic life to the point of
talking him through a date with Hannah via an earpiece. Simon reciprocates by helping James to succeed
at work - for all the newcomers popularity and bravado, hes no grafter, and has little idea what his job is
meant to entail. When James commences relationships first with the bosss young daughter Melanie
(Yasmin Paige), and then with Hannah herself, Simons loyalty is challenged and it runs out altogether when
James asks him to assist in keeping his conflicting love interests apart. Simon asks James to desist in his
courtship of Hannah, using his knowledge of Jamess professional incompetence, but James responds with
a threat of blackmail: hell expose compromising photographs of himself with Melanie, and tell the world
that its Simon whos with her. In his increasing desperation, Simon discovers that hes connected to James
via more than appearance: when James causes him a minor physical wound, the mark appears on both of
their bodies.
Hannah, meanwhile, suspects that James is seeing other women, and asks Simon to find out for her. Simon
opts to intervene indirectly: knowing that James is with Melanie, he calls Hannah, pretending to be Simon,
and asks her to come over. When she does so, James sends her away; Simon sees all through his telescope.
At work, however, Simon seems less substantial than ever: his ID card is taken away from him, and hes told
that according to the system, hes never existed at all. Simon tries to report James to their superiors as an
inadequate worker, but he cannot make himself heard, and he is finally ejected from the premises. At
home, through his telescope, he sees Hannah prone on her bed. He breaks into her flat and finds her
unconscious, a suicide note left behind. He takes her to hospital and is told that she has suffered a
miscarriage. On her recovery, he takes her home; she is far from grateful, rather declaring that she hopes to
try and again, and suggesting that Simon might be best served by doing the same.
Simon receives a phone call letting him know that his mother has died. Upon arriving at the nocturnal
funeral she has requested, Simon finds James there, and attacks him. Once again, their physical
interconnection is apparent: when Simon punches James his own nose bleeds. This gives Simon an idea.
Following the funeral, he goes to Jamess apartment and handcuffs his double to the bed. He telephones
the police and tells them that he has observed a neighbour about to jump. He then returns to his own
apartment and jumps from the window. Because of his detailed knowledge of a previous suicide, he knows
how to angle his jump to avoid death. Badly injured, but satisfied that he has destroyed his rival; Simon is
taken to hospital in an ambulance. James, meanwhile, lies undiscovered, bleeding from his own head
wound.