The Media Tourist

Sebastian Stan has a face-off with himself in this wild-twist parable about people who “don’t belong”

A Different Man
Starring Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve & Adam Pearson
Directed by Aaron Schimberg
Rated R

In theaters Wed., Oct. 4

 A struggling actor with a disfigured face gets a miraculous second chance at life in this wild, inside-out parable about identity, self-awareness, longing to belong and our perceptions of beauty and ugliness. Sebastian Stan (so good in Pam & Tommy and I, Tonya) is center stage as Edward, a glum recluse whose advanced neurofibromatosis makes him look like The Elephant Man. He’s a shlumpy sad sack as he moves around New York City, shunning people, trying to be inconspicuous, wishing he could be invisible. But he perks up a bit to a new neighbor, Ingrid, an aspiring playwright (Norway’s Renate Reinsve) who seems to “see” him as a person, not as a freak.

An experimental medical procedure offers a possible cure for Edward’s condition, and his face soon starts to peel off in goopy clumps. And as it does, voila—underneath is something crazy: a “normal” face, and an exceptionally handsome one at that. Edward becomes a different man entirely, taking a new name, Guy, burying his painful past and reveling in his dashing new looks as he becomes a hotshot New York real estate broker. His coworkers celebrate his success, admitting that he’s a fine piece of “man candy.” At a bar, a young woman takes him into the bathroom and pulls down his pants for a quickie. Edward can’t believe how things have turned around.

But he keeps the latex mold—a mask—made by his doctor of his “former” face to gauge how his treatment was going. It’s a reminder of the person he used to be.

What happens next, well, it’s no Beauty and the Beast, although that folktale is certainly referenced, along with Cyrano de Bergerac, Woody Allen movies and an acclaimed book by Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye, about a little Black girl who wishes for blue eyes to better fit in with the Caucasians around her. Edward, who also once anguished because he didn’t fit in, finds that the grass isn’t always greener (or bluer) on the other side, especially when he meets another man, Oswald (Adam Pearson), with the same facial disfigurement he once had.  (And that’s no makeup job on Pearson, a British actor who really does have neurofibromatosis and campaigns to prevent bullying of people with deformities.)

Unlike Edward the Elephant Man, Oswald is outgoing, glib, brimming with personality and self-confidence. He plays the saxophone and has a young daughter. Oswald has embraced his face and his life, and women swoon before him when he soulfully croons the Rose Royce hit “I Wanna Get Next to You” at a karaoke bar. And Edward/Guy can only watch in awe, and seethe with envy.

The film loops itself into a Möbius Strip of art imitating life and life imitating art when “Guy” and Oswald both compete to star in an off-Broadway play about Edward and his disfigurement. And guess what? It’s written and directed by Ingrid—who has no idea that “Guy” used to be Edward. In rehearsals, Guy wears his Edward mask, and Ingrid even wants him to put it on when they’re rooting and rutting around in the sack. Edward doesn’t know if she’s turned on by it, or just finds it freakishly funny.

As Edward’s frustration, jealosy and resentment build with Oswald, everything boils over into yet another reversal of fortune—and actor Michael Shannon pops up for a Christmas meal.

In an early scene, a rat plops out of a dark, dank hole in Edward’s ceiling, falling with a sloppy splash into a bucket of yukky water. Much later, in a new upscale apartment, “Guy” is repulsed to find a cockroach has dropped into his coffee. Rats and cockroaches, things that were once hidden, things that repulse us, have now come into plain view, like Edward after his “mask” comes off.

A Different Man gives you a lot to ponder, suggesting that we can change our masks—our faces—but we can’t change what’s underneath. It might be beautiful, but could also turn out to be beastly.

—Neil Pond