A Different Man (15)

Sebastian Stan excels as a facially disfigured actor whose life is transformed in Aaron Schimberg’s surrealist oddity.

Stan, at first wearing prosthetic makeup, plays Edward, a struggling actor whose employment consists of the occasional workplace-training video. Edward has a rare genetic condition known as Neurofibromatosis, which affects his facial appearance and his speech, and marks him as “different.”

When Edward has pioneering surgery transforming him into a conventionally handsome guy, his life is turned around and he passes himself off as someone else, but when he hears Ingrid (Renate Reinsve) is writing a play about their friendship before his operation, he insists on starring in it, wearing a mask of his old face. The arrival of Oswald (Adam Pearson) changes things: a confident British guy with the same facial condition who professes himself a massive fan of Ingrid’s creative process. With his sheer confidence and happiness, Oswald becomes a doppelganger threat to Edward.

What follows is an increasingly bizarre series of events as Edward’s world begins to spiral. A Different Man is very much a different kind of film, but no less fascinating to watch.