A Different Man
Aaron Schimberg tackles human identity in all its myriad forms in the year’s most challenging, affecting psychological fantasy.
A face apart: Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve
Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.
A different film, nestled alongside Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Despicable Me 4 and Deadpool & Wolverine, has arrived at the multiplex. A psychological comic fantasy, it not only challenges our concept of what it means to be a human being but of the words we can even use to describe that experience. In a world that heaps increasing value on physical appearance, on cosmetic perfection, not all of us can keep up. Edward (Sebastian Stan) has a disorder called neurofibromatosis and has to live with the stares and averted gazes that his appearance is heir to. Of course, for us, the viewer, he is an immediately empathetic figure and we feel his pain, his discomfort, the ingrained horror of being a different man in a society that provides no room for the facially unconventional. The public antipathy and people’s thinly-disguised aversion has a profound effect on the psyche of our protagonist. And yet the longer we follow Edward’s stumbling trajectory through his life, the more accustomed we come to his physiognomy. He is the hero of our story. When the director Aaron Schimberg introduces other ‘physically different’ characters to the stage, our default reaction to their facial nonconformity returns – even as we have adjusted to the singular countenance of Edward.
Yet A Different Man has a darker agenda, more layers to unpick, as Eward undergoes a medically supervised transformation. Even as the outward reactions to the man have changed, have ameliorated, the mental scars remain within. Even beneath his conventional narrative, Aaron Schimberg presents us with a different kind of film, with its discordant soundtrack, composed of a free-jazz soundtrack and the jarring knocks, thuds and car alarms that intrude on Edward’s state of mind. Paying literal homage to Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, and other entries in the field of transformation, the director tweaks our cultural preconceptions just as acutely, introducing ungainly zooms and a grainy texture to his imagery, plunging us into the low-budget cinema of 1970s’ weird.
Trapped in both a physical and psychological hell, Edward lives in a grotty New York apartment with a leaking ceiling and noisy neighbours. When he is first spotted by a beautiful new tenant, Ingrid Vold (Renate Reinsve), she emits an audible gasp, later attempting to make amends with concern and camaraderie, although refraining from directly asking him about his appearance. But, of course, like many of us, she – an aspiring playwright – is concealing her genuine feelings behind a faux demeanour of nonchalant compassion. The elephant in the room is Edward himself, whose aspect is the overarching theme of everybody who comes in contact with him. Inevitably, Edward’s “difference” is etched into his very persona, so that when he is transformed into the Sebastian Stan we actually recognise, his hunched shoulders and feeling of inadequacy remains. As a friendship of sorts develops between him and Ingrid, the latter’s motives may be self-serving as she uses him as material for a new play, even stealing the dialogue from his lips. One could direct the same criticism at Aaron Schimberg, who has cast Adam Pearson, an actor with neurofibromatosis. Pearson previously appeared in Under the Skin, in which he shared a moment of intimacy with Scarlett Johansson, while also starring in Schimberg’s last film Chained for Life. Schimberg, who has a cameo in the new film, provides Pearson with a life-affirming platform, with a part that he specifically wrote for him.
Absorbing the viewer into the interior world of Edward – much like Nora Fingscheidt did with Saoirse Ronan’s troubled Amy Liptrot in The Outrun – Schimberg leaves us more than a little disconcerted as well as rightly challenged. So the next time you look in the mirror, check to see who is looking back at you.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve, Adam Pearson, C. Mason Wells, Owen Kline, Charlie Korsmo, Patrick Wang, Michael Shannon, Aaron Schimberg.
Dir Aaron Schimberg, Pro Christine Vachon, Vanessa McDonnell and Gabriel Mayers, Ex Pro Sebastian Stan, Screenplay Aaron Schimberg, Ph Wyatt Garfield, Pro Des Anna Kathleen, Ed Taylor Levy, Music Umberto Smerilli, Costumes Stacey Berman, Sound David Forshee.
A24/Killer Films/Grand Motel Films-Universal Pictures.
112 mins. USA. 2023. US Rel: 20 September 2024. UK Rel: 4 October 2024. Cert. 15.
