Predicting the rise of Academy award-winning directors — 2024 winner Christopher Nolan, 2021 winner Chloé Zhao and 2019 winner Alfonso Cuaron — Variety’s list for 2024 includes Aaron Schimberg, director of “A Different Man.” Schimberg’s third film is a comedy thriller — a rare combination to find, and an even harder genre to master — in which he utilizes the absurd to create a film that has audiences jumping out of their seats one scene and laughing in the next.
Through a series of awkward events at the beginning of the film, Edward, played by Sebastian Stan — a struggling actor with neurofibromatosis, which is a condition that causes noncancerous tumors to grow in the nervous system — quickly earns the audience’s sympathy as he navigates through life with his disorder.
In Edward’s case, the benign lumps grow across his face, making his actor aspirations immensely difficult. Along with failing auditions, he endures incessant staring from people on the metro and is unable to suavely navigate a romantic relationship with Ingrid, his eccentric next door neighbor played by Renate Reinsve.
Along with distinguishing Edward as a pitiable character, the first 40 minutes of the film are also dedicated to setting up a series of loose threads which are not pulled until the end, leaving the audience wanting Edward’s life to take a turn for the better.
That is until the film offers an alternative life, after he visits a hospital that claims to be able to cure his condition, Edward’s face begins to fall off in clumps. It is after this gruesome scene of body horror, where he screams in pain and peels off his face, that the audience meets Guy — the fresh body and face that Edward inherits.
Sebastian Stan’s performance is a standout, as he convincingly portrays a man who has to readjust to society following a breakdown of his physical self, while still harboring the immense loneliness and desire of Edward. Most scenes are filled with Smerilli’s score, including no dialogue from Edward at all. As the script felt empty in the beginning, Stan’s body language and facial expressions did the heavy lifting and filled the screen with purpose.
With a face like Stan’s, Guy navigates the world easily — after faking his death as Edward — earning a stable real estate job with basic coworkers. Despite getting the seemingly average life he has always wanted, he still feels that something is missing. This feeling is the catalyst for the introduction to Oswald, who is played by Adam Pearson — an actor who actually has neurofibromatosis.
They meet when Guy discovers that Ingrid has turned his life — with his former face as Edward — into a play, and he finds himself auditioning as “Gus,” with a mask of his face prior to his kafkaesque metamorphosis. Oswald seems to be everything Edward was not. He is confident, outgoing and has the charisma and charm of a superhero — as the audience sees through his regular attendance of yoga at the park in the morning and his conversations with a woman at a bar. It is through this foil that Guy is forced to confront his self-worth. This confrontation is accompanied by Umberto Smerilli’s compelling score, which adds to the odd and uneasy feeling with the layers of dark piano and strings.
Guy may have shed his face off, but through their dynamic, the film is saying that it is the heart that matters. Oswald always approaches Guy first — starting and leading conversations — reducing him to the audience as a passive character, always responding and never engaging. Pearson’s character is proof that the self-tortured Edward did not have to become a different man to enjoy his life to the fullest — he could have been that guy all along.
Guy, at the end of the day, is still Edward, but because of their respective appearances they are treated drastically differently. Through only a physical change to conventional attractiveness, the film reveals the vulnerabilities and true nature of its main character. However, it is straightforward to its detriment. There is no subtlety in its messaging that beauty is a mindset and that the body and spirit are not codependent.
During the second act — which is focused around the production of the play — Oswald, Guy and Ingrid are juggling moral questions about what it means to write a disabled character on stage. Ingrid, as the playwright — notably the only one never having had the condition out of the three — is controlling the discussions and adaptation of the character Edward.
Guy and Oswald are not the only characters that serve as representatives for how societal issues surrounding appearance manifest in daily life. Ingrid is the representative of the exploitative, unsympathetic entertainment industry — one that does not let actors, like Pearson, be anything outside of roles that are defined by their condition — as she controls all aspects of the direction of the play. She is her own writing room, making self-interested creative decisions — like when she only agreed with Oswald when it served to benefit her.
These spaces are increasingly politicized, as diversity and representation have been at the forefront of issues regarding representation off and on-screen. “A Different Man” is satirizing the ridiculous nature of producers who aim to tell stories that fail to include diverse or original experiences.
Unlike the first two acts, which use a lot of the runtime to establish their footing and let the audience sit with characters, the third act comes in strong and fast. The resolution comes in abruptly, disrupting the viewing experience with constant whiplash filling the last 20 minutes leaving for an exciting, but unfulfilling end — one that leaves the audience questioning if that was really it as the credits roll.
Despite its chaotic pacing, the film’s highlighting of society's obsessions with aesthetics and appearance makes it a poignant meditation on perception and identity. Although it may discuss a tired topic — like the cliché of finding one’s inner beauty — the movie makes up for it in style and shock.
With a focus on the conversations surrounding bringing real life to the screen and the social currency of being attractive, the film takes a hackneyed trope and presents it in a new light. Instead of preaching, Schimberg offers a mirror to society while keeping the audience engaged with its unconventional humor and light jumpscares.
In a year with few standout films, “A Different Man” is a must-watch for 2024.
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