Film Review: A Different Man

A Different Man
Director: Aaron Shimberg
Killer Films and Grand Motel Films
In Theaters: 10.04

Surface level appearances are rarely an effective way to judge anything, and as such, while I was aware of some basics of A Different Man after its premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, when it started getting buzz, I avoided finding out much about it until I could see it, though I managed to absorb just enough to go in expecting a completely different film than what I saw.

A Different Man follows Edward Lemuel (Sebastian Stan, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Fresh), an aspiring actor in New York, who only works in niche roles because he has from neurofibromatosis type 1, which causes noncancerous tumors and severe facial deformity. Edward has few friends, though he hits it off with his neighbor, Ingrid (Renate Reinsve, The Worst Person in the World), a playwright. When Edward undergoes a radical facial reconstructive procedure, he becomes unrecognizable, getting the handsome face that he always wanted and he starts an entirely new life, becoming a successful real estate agent. When he discovers that Ingrid is staging an off-broadway play based on him, he becomes obsessed with it and decides to audition for the lead role, though Ingrid doesn’t know his true identity. Edward is cast in the role, with the idea being that he’ll do it under prosthetics – until Oswald (Adam Pearson, Under The Skin), a remarkably charming man who also has neurofibromatosis, shows up at rehearsals and ingratiates himself to Ingrid and everyone else, and Edward suddenly finds once again an outsider looking in on his own life.

Writer-director Aaron Shimberg (Chained For Life) gives us a taste of what David Lynch’s 1980 classic The Elephant Man would look like if it had been written by Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation), though it eases into the more comedic elements much more slowly. The movie works better than it sounds like it should from that description, though it is so clearly an almost desperate Kaufman imitation in terms of style and tone that it struggles to find an original voice. It’s still a very intriguing film that’s filled with interesting characters and thoughtful, introspective questions. It’s more satisfying when it leaves the answers as ambiguous as possible, leaving the audience with something to talk and think about after it’s over. A surreal treatise on how the way the treatment of others effects our view of ourselves, it gets even more layered when Edward is faced with the conundrum of Oswald, who deals with the same deformity that always defined Edward and kept him from social connections, yet not only is no one uncomfortable or awkward around Oswald, he’s a social butterfly beloved by all. Edward’s attempts to reconcile why his life isn’t getting better, and even questioning if it’s gotten worse, make for a bizarrely fascinating study of the effects of self perception on the course of our lives. 

Stan is a talented, low-key actor, and despite his leading man looks, he tends to be pushed into the background in supporting roles while someone else gets all of the adoration. This makes Edward, a man who seems to be incapable of playing the role of the protagonist in his own life, a role that is perfectly suits him, and with or without the heavy make-up, he disappears into the character. Reinsve is quite wonderful as Ingrid, a deliberately nebulous character, and Pearson makes the movie with his charming and magnetic performance as Oswald. In fact, it’s quite clear that the movie exists because of Pearson, whose face is not altered with make-up and appears just as he looks in real life. He worked with Shimberg on his last film Chained For Life, and clearly served as the inspiration for this story.

A Different Man is an absorbing and interesting film that didn’t completely satisfy me, losing its way in the final section as it tries for too much without a clear idea of why it’s doing so. The film jumps a bit too high and doesn’t stick the landing, though it’s nonetheless a noteworthy and absorbing effort that deserves to be seen. –Patrick Gibbs

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