Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Adam Schimberg
Starring: Adam Pearson, Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve, C. Mason Wells, Owen Kline, Charlie Kosmo, Patrick Wang,
Michael Shannon
The initial conversation around Tom McCarthy's 2003 directorial debut
The Station Agent was centred on why the filmmaker opted to
cast a little person in the lead role when the part wasn't specifically
tailored for such an actor. But in Peter Dinklage, McCarthy discovered a
star, and Dinklage's performance was so striking that other filmmakers began
writing little people into their scripts just to work with him. It wasn't
long before Dinklage was being cast in roles that made no reference to his
stature. Today, nobody bats an eyelid when Dinklage is cast in the sort of
roles a little person would never have been considered for a couple of
decades ago.
Could writer/director Aaron Schimberg's
A Different Man do for actors with neurofibromatosis as
The Station Agent did for little people? Could actor
Adam Pearson - previously briefly seen as one of Scarlett Johansson's
victims in Under the Skin and in a lead role in Schimberg's
lesser seen previous feature Chained for Life - have an
unlikely career in the manner of Dinklage? Conventional thinking would say
his condition and its resultant severe facial disfigurement precludes him
from being cast in any "regular" roles that don't explicitly reference his
looks. But didn't we think the same about Peter Dinklage not so long ago?
Pearson is such a charismatic force of nature in
A Different Man that when the credits role you'll find
yourself excited to see his next role, whatever form it takes. He possesses
such an infectious energy that we fully buy into the idea of the character
he plays, Oswald, being able to win over everyone he encounters in spite of
his appearance.
Conversely, we also accept Sebastian Stan as a man who feels deeply
uncomfortable in his skin, despite looking like...well, Sebastian Stan. When
we initially meet the Hollywood heartthrob his chiselled features are buried
under prosthetics. He plays Edward, who like Pearson, is afflicted by
neurofibromatosis. Edward is an aspiring actor, but thanks to that
aforementioned conventional thinking, he's only been able to land a part in
a laughably patronising corporate training video on how to deal with
disfigured co-workers. Eternally conscious of his appearance, Edward walks
with a slouch and keeps his head down, avoiding human contact where
possible. Even friendliness makes him uncomfortably self-aware, like that of
his new neighbour, beautiful Scandinavian wannabe playwright Ingrid (Renate Reinsve).
In similar fashion to this year's similarly themed
The Substance, a visit to the doctor leads Edward to a radical new experimental
treatment that may cure his condition. Edward volunteers for the experiment
but isn't told whether he's actually receiving the treatment or is part of a
control group being fed placebos. As Edward finds his skin gradually peeling away, it becomes clear that he
is indeed receiving the treatment, and it's working wonders. When his old
face eventually falls away he's left looking like Sebastian Stan. Creating a
story that Edward committed suicide, he assumes a new name, Guy.
Some time later Guy is a successful real estate agent, his handsome face
plastered all over New York adverts. But inside he's still Edward. He still
walks with a slouch and drooped shoulders, and he's uncomfortable when his
looks are acknowledged, as though he feels like a fraud, or he's betrayed
his old self. One day he stumbles across Ingrid and discovers that she's
holding auditions for a play called "Edward," which is based on her
friendship with the man she believes killed himself. Guy decides to audition
but initially flops. Trying out a second time with a mask his doctors made
of his old face, Guy not only wins the part but begins dating Ingrid.
Enter Oswald, who arrives to try out for the part only to concede that Guy
is a better choice, despite Oswald sharing the very same condition as "the
late" Edward. Guy is unsettled by Oswald, who begins appearing everywhere he
goes. Unlike Edward, Oswald refuses to let his appearance define him, and he
easily wins friends with his charming nature. Guy begins to worry that
Ingrid is considering replacing him with Oswald, both in her play and her
life.
Schimberg seems heavily influenced by Woody Allen, with a supporting
character even likening Edward's awkward manner to the nervous persona of a
young Allen. The plotline is reflective of the dream in
Stardust Memories, where Allen finds himself on a train surrounded by miserable ghouls while
the carriage on the opposite track is filled with partying beautiful people,
including Sharon Stone. Edward/Guy feels like he's been cheated, stuck in
life's miserable carriage while the party rages across the tracks. It's a
bitterness most of us can relate to, even if we'd rather not admit to it.
Haven't we all seen successful people and wondered what they have that we
don't? For Edward it's an especially cruel irony given how we was treated
prior to his transformation. It wasn't simply a case of him allowing his
self-consciousness to affect him; he was othered by society in a way that
Oswald seems to have escaped. Rather than feeling good for Oswald,
Edward/Guy feels nothing but resentment.
A Different Man also feels like an American cousin of the
recent wave of Scandinavian social satires. The casting of Reinsve suggests
he's a fan of Joachim Trier's
The Worst Person in the World, while his film shares themes with Kristoffer Borgli's
Sick of Myself, in which a conventionally attractive young woman finds she gets more
positive attention when she becomes deformed as a result of taking a banned
drug. There's a level of blackly ironic humour here that we haven't seen in
American cinema since the heyday of Todd Solondz.
Along with tackling society's obsession with looks,
A Different Man raises other interesting questions. The film
industry currently finds itself walking on eggshells when it comes to
representation, satirised here in Ingrid's dilemma over whether to cast the
handsome Guy in make-up or the real deal Oswald. Ironically, Pearson and
Stan are both equally excellent here, and the fact that many viewers have
actually confused Stan's prosthetic performance as Edward with that of
Pearson's suggests that this is a dilemma that will rage on for some time
when it comes to screen representation. Edward/Guy's sense that he's not
getting everything he believed would come his way with a conventional face
echoes the resentment we currently see in a lot of young white men, bitter
that they can no longer enjoy the advantages their whiteness and maleness
afforded previous generations. For all of its anti-hero's dyspeptic
bitterness, A Different Man ends on a hopeful note that suggests we
all need to make peace with ourselves and stop envying others, and that true
ugliness is something we wear on the inside.
A Different Man is in UK/ROI
cinemas from October 4th.
