Title – A Different Man (2024)

Director – Aaron Schimberg (Chained for Life) 

Cast – Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve, Adam Pearson

Plot – Suffering from a serious facial deformity, aspiring actor Edward (Stan) participates in a radical new medical procedure, with hopes his surgery will finally gift him a face that can help him achieve all his many hopes and dreams.  

“People can be cruel, I imagine”

Review by Eddie on 02/04/2025

One of 2024’s most curious releases that has manged to become both an Oscar nominated and Golden Globe winning feature, A24’s A Different Man is a hard film to classify, talk about or pin down as director Aaron Schimberg takes us on a dark, comedic and at times gripping exploration of the life of Sebastian Stan’s aspiring actor Edward.

An adult whose severe facial deformity has lead to a life of perilous human encounters and a lack of opportunity to live what would be perceived to be a normal life, Edward shares similarities to the focus of David Lynch’s Elephant Man as he finds potential solace and salvation from a new medical procedure that could transform his appearance for good and unlock a world of possibilities that had previously been nothing more than a dream.

Giving Sebastian Stan an opportunity to pull double duties as both the deformed Edward and then as the blue eyed Bucky we’ve come to know in Hollywood, while it’s fantastic Stan’s brilliant work in the Donald Trump drama The Apprentice was recognised by the Academy Awards in the form of a nomination it could be rightfully argued that Stan was nominated for the wrong film with his turn here as Edward debatably a career best effort.

Initially unrecognisable, Stan is nothing short of a revelation as the lowly soft spoken Edward that becomes the titular person of Schimberg’s dark character exploration and his work here is undoubtedly some of 2024’s best and while he gets able support from Renate Reinsve as acquittance of Edward Ingrid and disability advocate Adam Pearson as the hard to get a gauge on Oswald, A Different Man is the Stan show who proves to us all that he is without a doubt one of the most interesting male performers in Hollywood at the present time.

An unnerving experience throughout and one that transpires outside of the usual normal run of the mill fashion, Schimberg’s film never quite manages to match Stan’s levels of overall greatness but there’s a lot to like about this odd and unpredictable affair from Schimberg’s intriguing directional choices, Umberto Smerilli’s unique score and some duly noted makeup work from the creative team, making it a notable shame that A24 didn’t seem to understand how to promote their film to a wider audience, with many likely to not even have known about A Different Man’s release in the first instance.

Much like there other awards season player Sing Sing, 2024 saw A24 fail to properly come to terms with what A Different Man and who it was for, leaving it to its own devices. There’s high possibilities that had they managed to play their cards right, A24 may have been campaigning in a much larger way to have many of their quality releases become genuine awards threats rather than mere passengers.

Final Say –

A film that’s best enjoyed with as little prior knowledge as possible, A Different Man has it’s issues but they’re far outweighed by its wins that are built around and off a mesmerising lead turn from Sebastian Stan.

3 1/2 ceiling leaks out of 5