SYNOPSIS: In the existential comedy “A Different Man,” now playing in theatres, Sebastian Stan plays Edward, a man who undergoes an experimental medical trial to “cure” the neurofibromatosis that has caused large tumors to grow along the nerves of his face and neck. Post procedure, he becomes obsessed with the actor playing him in an Off-Broadway production about his life and relationship with next-door neighbor Ingrid (Renate Reinsve).
CAST: Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve, Adam Pearson, C. Mason Wells, Owen Kline, Charlie Korsmo, Patrick Wang, Michael Shannon. Written and directed by Aaron Schimberg.
REVIEW: A postmodern mix-and-match of “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and “Cyrano de Bergerac” propelled by b-movie energy, “A Different Man” is a Kafkaesque tale about the perception of beauty. Writer/director by Aaron Schimberg examines the perception of beauty and what it means to be “normal.”
When we first meet Edward, played by Stan under a thick layer of make-up, he’s jumpy, a bundle of anxiety and paranoia. He draws stares on the subway from curious lookie-loos who turn their heads when he makes eye contact.
An aspiring actor, he dutifully goes to auditions but is frustrated by the lack of opportunity for a man with his facial deformity. When he is “cured” he begins anew, metaphorically killing off Edward. He changes his name to Guy, gets a new career and friends.
Trouble is, while he now has acceptance from others, he isn’t any happier as Guy than he was as Edward. That feeling is compounded when he meets the flamboyant Oswald, played by Adam Pearson, the English television presenter, actor and neurofibromatosis activist.
Oswald is everything Edward/Guy isn’t. He’s comfortable in his skin, moves through the world with impunity and doesn’t allow his genetic condition to define his life. That dynamic sets up the film’s gonzo second half as Guy’s obsession with Oswald forces him to examine the real reason for his insecurity and misery.
“A Different Man” tackles the big issues that shaped Edward/Guy’s life. He wants to be seen for who he is, but is, instead, gawked at, made to feel like an outsider every time he leaves his apartment.
Stan’s remarkable performance transcends the character’s heavy make-up. Stan portrays the “facially different” Edward’s complex inner life through his outward physicality. It’s a full body performance that vividly captures Edward’s self-loathing, melancholy, anger and occasional fleeting moments of happiness.
As Guy, Stan is all frustration. His life takes a surreal turn as he proves to be inadequate at playing himself on-stage in a play based on his life. As a result, he becomes fixated on clawing back the life he left behind.
On the flipside is Pearson whose charming performance cuts through much of the film’s sturm und drang. Without an iota of self-pity Oswald embraces the thing that makes him different and lives a life Edward wants but will never have.
“A Different Man” is a singular movie. Schimberg digs deep to examine the skin-deep notions of attractiveness, and the effect of beauty on the eye of the beholder.
“Saltburn,” a dark comedy of manners starring “Priscilla’s” Jacob Elordi and Academy Award nominee Barry Keoghan and now playing in theatres, is a titillating “Talented Mr. Ripley” style tale of class, position and desire that is not afraid to get weird.
Keoghan is Oliver Quick, a shy “scholarship kid” at Oxford University who doesn’t quite fit in with his classmates. His jackets aren’t from Saville Row, he lacks their social graces and most notably, doesn’t come from oodles of cash.
When the handsome, gregarious and monied Felix Catton’s (Elordi) bicycle get s flat tire on the way to a tutorial, Oliver comes to the rescue and the odd couple become fast friends. Ollie isn’t exactly embraced by Felix’s well-heeled inner circle, who find him coarse, but they become tight, hanging out at the pub when they aren’t studying.
At the end of the term Felix asks if Oliver will go home for the summer.
“Honestly, home doesn’t mean the same thing for me as it does for you Felix,” Oliver says. “I don’t think I’ll ever go home again.“
His tale of woe, of growing up as the only child to a drunken father, moves Felix who invites him to spend the summer at Saltburn, his family’s palatial estate.
“Just be yourself,” Felix says. “They’ll love you. It’s relaxed. I promise.”
Except it’s not. It’s the kind of English country home that makes Downton Abbey look like a shack. Priceless art lines the walls, there are butlers and footmen, mandatory jackets at dinner and an oddball collection of aristocratic family members including Felix’s eccentric, self-absorbed father Sir James (Richard E. Grant), casually cruel mother Elspeth (Rosamund Pike) and troubled sister Venetia (Alison Oliver), who tells the newcomer, “You’re just another one of his toys.”
He may be a novelty, out of his depth, but Oliver is drawn to shiny things, the lives of the rich and famous, and will do anything to stay in that privileged world.
“Saltburn” isn’t just a study of the haves and the have nots, it’s a tale of the haves and unchained aspiration. Obsessed with the good life, Oliver will do bad things to get a taste of it.
Keoghan takes risks as the chameleonic Oliver. Whether he is vulnerable, hapless, or a menacing manipulator, the “The Banshees of Inisherin” actor chooses interesting ways to manifest Oliver’s state of mind. There may not be much beneath the surface, other than danger and avarice, but Keoghan, whether he is dancing naked through the grand home or lapping up bath water, keeps the performance and the audience off kilter.
Elordi allows just enough of Felix’s heart of gold to shine through his charming veneer to make the filthy rich character feel a little less dirty and Grant is perfection as the repressed upper-class twit at the head of the family, but it is Pike who steals every scene she’s in. Blessed with the film’s best lines, Elspeth has an off-hand, casual way with a barb that cuts like a knife. When she hears about a friend who has taken her own life, she snorts, “She’d do anything for attention.” These lines are often asides, not central to the action, but Pike makes them memorable.
Unfortunately, director Emerald Fennell, who also wrote the script, doesn’t mine the class satire for answers. She’s content with the black comedy, Oliver’s coldhearted desire and little else. The result is an entertaining film, but a mixed bag. It’s diverting, filled with over-the-top moments and plot twists, but at the end it feels less than the sum of its parts.
