A DIFFERENT MAN

Despite yet another excellent Sebastian Stan performance and a great hook, A Different Man doesn’t totally convince because the film struggles to find the perfect tone and the message is quite repetitive.

Thematically A Different Man hews close to the disturbing duality present in the works of David Lynch. Yet while the film is definitely a fascinatingly weird watch, it is soft around the edges instead of uncomfortably rough, which severely dilutes the picture’s power.

In the film, Edward, an aspiring actor with a disfigured face – played by Adam Pearson, who suffers from neurofibromatosis himself – undergoes groundbreaking surgery. Almost overnight he is transformed into another man (Sebastian Stan). Yet just when his career takes off, a British man, who looks exactly like his old self, appears in his life and quickly becomes the centre of attention, much to Edward’s chagrin.

The message A Different Man conveys is rather obvious – and certainly one of the film’s weak spots – but this is offset by a narrative approach that normalizes the weirdness of the events. For a while this keeps the film going, but once the final act arrives, writer-director Aaron Schimberg chooses mostly conventional paths to conclude the story, as well as an oddly uncommitted final scene.

After a good start the movie also struggles tonally, never settling on the kind of movie it wants to be: a slightly more conventional Lynchian film or a slightly more bonkers Woody Allen film. In fact, for large stretches the only thing truly tying A Different Man together is an excellent lead performance by Sebastian Stan, who between this and The Apprentice is having a banner year.

Still, odds are you will not be bored if you watch A Different Man on the big screen, because for all the films flaws, its effortless, odd entertainment value is undeniable. 

release: 2024

director: Aaron Schimberg

starring: Sebastian Stan, Adam Pearson, Renate Reinsve, Michael Shannon