It’s the third film by Schimberg and his 2018 Chained for Life garnered considerable critical acclaim as well as indie success. A Different Man is a tale about an ambitious New York actor Edward, played by Sebastian Stan, who has neurofibromatosis which has caused him to have facial disfigurement.
Edward undergoes a radical surgical procedure to drastically transform his appearance. As a result, a lot of things change in his life as he becomes a handsome man who can easily attract women and successful jobs. But on the other hand the change is only skin deep and on another level everything remains disturbingly the same for Edward. He has changed outwardly and can start a new life, he is still who he is and not who he wants to be.
Edward falls for Ingrid played by Renate Reinsve while he is still disfigured but Ingrid makes it clear she is only interested in a platonic relationship as friends. After Edward’s transformation he meets Ingrid again but she doesn’t recognise him. Edward now calls himself Guy and tells people Edward committed suicide. Ingrid has written a play based on Edward as he was before his treatment.
As Ingrid’s play rolls into production Oswald played by Adam Pearson, appears on the scene during rehearsals. Oswald has neurofibromatosis and he wants to see how Ingrid handles the subject of disfigurement.
British actor Adam Pearson has neurofibromatosis in real life. He also appeared in Chained For Life and so memorable in Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin. Schimberg makes the interesting choice of having Edward before his transformation played by Stan in a mask and extensive make-up. As the charming Oswald, Adam Pearson appears more or less as himself. Chained for Life takes a dark look at how beauty is portrayed in the movies. The film is something of a film within a film called “God’s Misfits” and Adam Pearson shows up on the film set to play a disfigured man.
In A Different Man Schimberg continues the exploration of the subject of beauty and disfigurement and society’s attitudes towards each of these physical attributes to another level from what could have been a trite and superficial treatment of the topic. Schimberg has spoken about how his own experiences of being bullied due to what he looked like in his youth because he had a cleft palate and how that has formed his ideas in filmmaking. Schimberg's 2009 short film Late Spring: Regrets for our Youth detailed an operation to fix his cleft palate and how these experiences impacted him.
A Different Man (USA)
Directed by Aaron Schimberg
Cast: Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve, Adam Pearson
