A Different Man | Tone imbalance

Synopsis: After facial reconstruction surgery, Edward becomes obsessed with the actor who plays him in a theater production inspired by his life.

New York author-filmmaker Aaron Schimberg took an interest in his film Chained for Life (2018), with the tense relationship between a young actress and a disfigured actor (Adam Pearson, suffering from neurofibromatosis) on a film set.

In A Different Manwhich had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, Schimberg once again focuses on a man who suffers from neurofibromatosis. Edward (Sebastian Stan), an actor who dreams of playing in the theater, is a loner, who doesn’t dare venture out of his apartment too much, for fear of being insulted or harassed because of his handicap.

He agrees to undergo experimental facial reconstruction surgery that changes his life, for better and for worse. When Ingrid (Renate Reinsve, revealed by The Worst Person in the World, by Joachim Trier)a young playwright, decides to put on a play appropriating Edward’s life, the latter does not dare to tell her that he is his disfigured former neighbor. Also, another man suffering from neurofibromatosis, the eccentric Oswald (Adam Pearson), threatens to take the role of his life from him. Edward is fixated on this ally who seems to turn into a rival.

The game inspired, with and without prosthesis, by Sebastian Stan (the Winter Soldier of the Avengers and soon Donald Trump in The Apprentice, by Ali Abbasi) won him the Silver Bear (non-gender) at the Berlin Film Festival for best performance in a leading role. Adam Pearson is also very intriguing as Oswald, a suave British gentleman as extroverted as Edward is introverted.

Aaron Schimberg has concocted a surrealist film which multiplies mise en abyme and ellipses, without ever finding a real balance of tone between the social drama, the psychological thriller, the body horror and offbeat independent comedy.

A Different Manwhich suffers from this lack of direction particularly in the last third, offers a sluggish morality: we only see clearly with the heart, the essential is invisible to the eyes. The little prince had already told us.

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