By Sandra Hall
A DIFFERENT MAN ★★★½
(MA15+) 112 minutes
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Or if you prefer: be careful what you wish for. You can choose your own proverb to summarise the theme of Aaron Schimberg’s bizarre absurdist comedy A Different Man.
Sebastian Stan plays Edward, whose life is transformed when he takes part in a radical medical procedure in A Different Man.Credit: Matt Infante/A24
It centres on an unlikely subject for humour. Its main character, Sebastian Stan’s Edward, an aspiring actor, suffers from neurofibromatosis, a genetic mutation that deforms his facial features.
We’ve seen it on screen before. A milder form was part of the plot of Stephen Chbosky’s Wonder with Julia Roberts as the mother of a 10-year-old boy with the condition. It was this film that inspired Schimberg to dream up his script. He was born with a cleft lip and palate and, even though he had corrective surgery, he was left with a desire to write about the psychological effects of having a face that does not conform to generally accepted perceptions of normality.
When we first meet Edward, he is appearing in a short film promoting tolerance in the workplace for those suffering a disability. Not that acting is doing much for his self-esteem. He leads a reclusive life, hurrying through the city each day with his head down lest some loudmouth start taunting him for the fun of it.
Renate Reinsve, who plays aspiring playwright Ingrid, and Adam Pearson, who plays Oswald – another character who suffers from neurofibromatosis – in A Different Man.
But things are about to change. His outgoing new neighbour, Ingrid (Renate Reinsve), gives every sign of wanting to get to know him for reasons that soon become plain. She’s writing her first play which, she’s decided, should be about him. And who better to play the lead?
Edward, however, has a secret. He’s part of an experimental drug trial aimed at peeling away his disfiguring tumours and giving him a normal face. And after a spectacularly grisly ordeal, horror movie is transformed into fairytale. The Frog becomes a Prince.
Edward’s response to this miracle is radical. Choosing to bury his old self, he takes the new name of Guy, makes up a story about Edward’s suicide and sets out on a new life.
And now comes the main moral behind the fable Schimberg is crafting. While Guy achieves one of his most fervent desires by embarking on an affair with Ingrid, he finds a new face is not the answer to all his problems and that he might have done better had he only known how to accept his old one.
Schimberg can’t quite handle the abrupt changes in mood that his ambitious scenario demands. Things accelerate to weirdly hysterical extremes as his denouement approaches, and you start to feel as if you’re in the hands of someone who doesn’t quite know how to play out the tangled web he’s woven. So many different genres have gone into it, that the central argument is in danger of getting lost in the confusion. Nonetheless, he’s given us a compelling film – an audacious and mordantly funny attempt to analyse a subject that’s so often regarded as taboo.
A Different Man is released in cinemas on October 24.
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