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 doppelganger 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 18th 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?