Vague Visages’ A Different Man review contains minor spoilers. Aaron Schimberg’s 2024 movie features Sebastian Stan, Miles G. Jackson and Patrick Wang. Check out the VV home page for more film reviews, along with cast/character summaries, streaming guides and complete soundtrack song listings.

*

Adam Schimberg clearly has a passion for a misfit story. After making an impact on the indie scene with his 2018 film Chained for Life, the American filmmaker tackles a much more ambitious and genuinely disconcerting production about a man with a facial disfigurement whose life is upended by a miracle treatment that completely alters his appearance. A Different Man is a bold, unsettling psychological drama, showing Sebastian Stan at his most chaotically unhinged, and making it clear that even after the actor ages out of leading man roles, he has a promising career ahead of him as a twisted elder statesman of Hollywood. Although A Different Man loses its way in the third act, the movie is still a confident and fascinating effort from a filmmaker with a distinctive visual style and something interesting to say.

Edward (Stan) is an aspiring actor with a severe facial disfigurement living a largely anonymous life in New York City, desperately trying to avoid drawing attention to himself at all costs. But his world is turned upside down by two major changes. First, Ingrid (Renate Reinsve) moves in to the apartment next to him, and they strike up a casual friendship, even while it’s clear that Edward is pining away for her. Ingrid is an aspiring playwright, and seems to be equal parts repulsed by and attracted to Stan’s protagonist, which is deeply confusing for all involved. But before long, Edward gets the chance of a lifetime, as he is put on a drug trial for a medication that allegedly has the ability to re-engineer the soft and hard tissue of his face. Doctors feel uncertain of what the effects will be, and they hope for minimal improvement. But to the surprise of Edward, in one agonizing sequence reminiscent of something David Cronenberg would dream up, the outer layer of skin on the protagonist’s face sloughs off. And so Stan’s character seizes the opportunity to start a new life with a normal look, changing his name to Guy and literally leaving his past self for dead. But it doesn’t provide him with as much satisfaction as he might have hoped, especially after discovering that Ingrid has written a play based on their brief friendship. The role of Edward is one that he was seemingly born to perform.

A Different Man Review: Related — Know the Cast & Characters: ‘Poker Face’

At its heart, A Difficult Man is an exploration of identity. If your look completely changes, are you still the same person? Edward would say no. It takes him no time at all to shed his original identity, and it seems like his personality changes along with his face. There’s a different version of A Difficult Man — a less challenging one — where Edward reveals the truth of his transformation, maintaining a link between his old and new selves. Guy is openly contemptuous of Edward, killing him off without a second thought, but at the same time, he needs to access his former presence for the play.

A Different Man Review: Related — Soundtracks of Cinema: ‘Old’

A Difficult Man features the most creatively interesting version of Sebastian Stan. The actor pours so much into his performance as a man who fails at every conceivable turn while struggling with his identity. Stan has never been afraid to put himself out there, taking on weirder and weirder roles when he’s not under the thumb of Marvel, but A Difficult Man marks his push into new territory. The protagonist is juxtaposed beautifully with Adam Pearson’s Oswald, a charming and gregarious man with facial disfigurements who lives a rich and fulfilling life — something Edward struggles to achieve before and after his transformation. There’s a sense that he always blamed any issues in his personal and professional life on his disfigurement, but what does it mean when he gets the face he always dreamed of and still isn’t satisfied?

A Different Man Review: Related — Soundtracks of Cinema: ‘Searching for Sugar Man’

A Different Man showcases Schimberg’s directorial talent through visually bizarre and off-putting moments. He’s unafraid of embracing the grotesque (not in the depiction of facial disfigurements, but in the horrifying process of skin removal) and the surreal, making his film a twisting, turning carnival of horrors. Although A Different Man becomes a little muddled in the final act, there are plenty of memorable moments, even if audiences might want to scrub their brains clean during a transformation sequence.

Audrey Fox (@theaudreyfox) is a features editor and film/television critic at Looper, with bylines at RogerEbert.com, Nerdist, /Film and IGN, amongst other outlets. She has been blessed by the tomato overlords with their coveted seal of approval. Audrey received her BA in film from Clark University and her MA in International Relations from Harvard University. When she’s not watching movies, Audrey loves historical non-fiction, theater, traveling and playing the violin (poorly).

A Different Man Review: Related — Know the Cast & Characters: ‘Crimes of the Future’