I missed Aaron Schimberg’s “A Different Man” during the Sundance Film Festival but have been hearing some rather interesting things about it. A trailer was just released and has piqued my curiosity further.
Films with characters who have facial deformities are not anything new, off the top of my head I can think of “Elephant Man,” “Mask” and “Wonder.” The main difference in “A Different Man” is that the main actor doesn’t use makeup and prosthetics to convey the look, but an actual actor with neurofibromatosis has been cast, Adam Pearson (“Under the Skin”).
The movie stars Pearson, Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve, C. Mason Wells, Owen Kline, Charlie Korsmo, Patrick Wang, and Michael Shannon … as himself. It’s written and directed by Schimberg (“Chained for Life”). Stan won the acting award at the 74th Berlin Film Festival.
Aspiring actor Edward (Sebastian Stan) undergoes a radical medical procedure to drastically transform his appearance. But his new dream face quickly turns into a nightmare as he becomes obsessed with reclaiming what was lost.
A24 will release “A Different Man” in theaters on September 20. It currently holds an 86% on Rotten Tomatoes and 74 on Metacritic.