Review of “A Different Man”: Provocative story gets under your skin

Imagine if you could wake up one morning, stand in front of the mirror and literally strip off all the parts of your appearance that you don't like – and only movie star beauty would remain.

How would it change your life? How SHOULD it change your life?

That is a question – or rather a starting point – for Edward, the protagonist of Aaron Schimberg’s fascinating, genre-bending, undeniably provocative and occasionally frustrating “Another man”, with an outstanding trio of Sebastian Stan, Adam Pearson and Renate Reinsve.

The title itself is open to many interpretations. Who (and what) is “different”? The real Edward, who suffers from neurofibromatosis, a genetic disorder that causes bulging tumors on his face? Or the man he becomes when he can slip out of this skin? And is he “different” from others or from himself?

When we meet Edward, a struggling actor in New York (Stan, with elaborate makeup), he is filming some kind of commercial. We soon learn that it is an instructional video explaining how to behave towards deformed colleagues. But even there, the director interrupts him and suggests changes. “I don't want to scare anyone,” he says.

On Edward's way home on the subway, people stare at him. Back in his small apartment building, he meets a young woman in the hallway who is in the process of moving into the apartment next door. She visibly flinches when she sees him for the first time, as practically everyone does.

But later, Ingrid (Reinsve) tries to make it up to him by coming over to chat. She is charming and open, and tells Edward that she is an aspiring playwright.

Edward goes for a medical examination and learns that one of his tumors is slowly growing beyond his eye. But he also learns about an experimental study that he could take part in. With the possibility – perhaps – of a cure.

So Edward joins the process, driven at least in part by the frustration of not being able to get closer to Ingrid. These scenes suddenly take on the feel of a science fiction fantasy film – not awkwardly, but somehow quite smoothly, switching genres for a while.

As for the drugs, they're taking effect even faster than anyone had hoped. Soon, Edward's skin starts to peel off in clumps. It's terrifying. And then he finds himself in front of the mirror, crumbling before his eyes. But suddenly Edward looks like – well, he looks like Sebastian Stan.

Of course, life changes, and radically so. When he returns to the same bar where he was stared at and left alone, he becomes everyone's buddy. One woman even wants to have sex with him in the bathroom. He catches his own gaze in the mirror, as if to say, “What's happening to us?”

Edward now makes a momentous decision. He simply disappears from his previous life and becomes a completely “different” person. Now he is called Guy and lives in a nicer place. He also has a job as a real estate agent – the ultimate career that takes full advantage of his silky good looks.

But Guy is, shall we say, uncomfortable in his own skin. Then one day he sees Ingrid come into the theater. She's holding auditions for the play she wrote – about a man just like Edward. Actually, it's Edward. And he's obsessed with playing the role.

During the auditions, Edward meets another deformed actor who aptly says, “I was born to play this.” Guy, of course, can't say why he disagrees – namely, that HE is Edward. Here, Schimberg takes up the tricky discussion about casting and whether disabled roles should only be played by disabled actors, trans roles by trans actors, and so on. By adding layers of complexity to his film, Schimberg does both in a way.

Or should we say Ingrid does both. As a playwright – and here the great Reinsve gets a poignancy that her initial, sweeter incarnation of Ingrid lacked – she seems to instinctively understand that Guy, despite his dashing looks, has a connection to the character. She even lets him rehearse wearing a mask of his former self.

Enter Oswald.

It's a shame we can't say too much about Oswald without giving too much away, because Oswald (Pearson) is the indispensable part of the final act. Oswald is (like Pearson) an actor who suffers from neurofibromatosis, but in every other way he is very different from Edward. He is outgoing, engaging, brimming with effortless wit – and British – and interacts with the world in ways Edward could only dream of.

This will naturally upset Edward/Guy. The first scenes, which explore the dynamic of this unlikely trio, are full of possibility and unease, sometimes comical and sometimes tragic.

What is Schimberg ultimately trying to say? This is where it gets tricky. He raises some tantalizing questions about authenticity in life and art, not to mention how our appearance determines our fate. Then he doesn't even answer those questions, instead shocking us with dizzying developments that, even in these entirely unique circumstances, feel like they came out of nowhere.

But it's a gripping journey, and Schimberg works with confidence and panache. Plus, his cast is so damn good that you want the story to keep going – how about a trilogy with everyone returning for sequels based on Oswald and Ingrid?

“A Different Man,” an A24 release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association “for sexual content, explicit nudity, language and some violence.” Running time: 112 minutes. Three out of four stars.