Aaron Schimberg’s A Different Man is a film that surprised me. It starts with one premise and ends up somewhere very different. Which characters it confers sympathy on to changes throughout, and the film is much funnier than I expected. The protagonist of A Different Man is Edward, a struggling actor who has neurofibromatosis, a condition that has caused tumors to appear on his face. For Edward, life is a non-stop series of indignities, some related to his condition and some not.
His tiny apartment is plagued by gross stuff falling from the ceiling. People gawk at him on the subway. His acting career isn’t thriving, and he doesn’t have much luck with the ladies, even as he’s struck up a friendship with his gorgeous new neighbor, aspiring playwright Ingrid (Renate Reinsve.)
Eventually, Edward hears from his doctors about an experimental procedure that will eliminate his facial deformity. This happens and causes him, overnight, to resemble good-looking movie star Sebastian Stan. Humorously, once he becomes handsome, it takes Edward roughly one hour to get an anonymous blowjob from an attractive woman in a bar bathroom. Even funnier, the first thing he does after becoming good-looking is take up a career as a real estate broker.
I’d assumed that actor Adam Pearson, who starred in Schimberg’s previous film Chained For Life, and has neurofibromatosis, was portraying Edward before the procedure, with Stan stepping in afterward. But it’s Stan all along, wearing heavy prosthetics. Pearson shows up later on as a different character, Oswald, who also has the condition but a very different personality. If A Different Man had been the story of Edward getting the procedure, becoming handsome, getting the girl, and everyone living happily ever after, that would’ve been weak. But luckily, the movie is considerably more compelling.
(Here’s a piece, published in 2022—likely in response to the movie and Stan’s casting first being announced in the trades—calling it “ableist” and arguing that it “should never see the light of day.” I don’t judge movies before they’ve been made.)
The film has a play-within-the-movie, as well as the protagonist meeting Pearson’s character and going crazy that someone with his former condition can be happy, prosperous, and have a great attitude. There’s also a fantastic cameo by a certain famous actor. This is one of Sebastian Stan’s best performances, playing two different characters equally well. Stan is going to be playing Donald Trump next month in The Apprentice, although when he wears a suit and affects a douchebag-style attitude, he much more strongly resembles Matt Gaetz than Trump. Renate Reinsve starred in one of the best international features of recent years, Norway’s The Worst Person in the World, and this is her best performance since then; as the murder victim in Apple’s Presumed Innocent revival, she didn’t get much to do.
Not everything works. The play’s described as “Off-Broadway,” although the theater we see, with about 25 seats, barely meets that definition. And the last 10 minutes are odd, including an incongruous time jump, and there will be arguments about the final scene.