'A Different Man' review: Sebastian Stan stuns in darkly funny take on identity

Sebastian Stan’s face literally falls off in the new dark comedy “A Different Man,” with the aim of questioning who we all are underneath.

Writer/director Aaron Schimberg’s fabulously thought-provoking and searingly funny flick (★★★½ out of four; rated R; in select theaters now, nationwide Friday) digs into themes of identity, empathy, self-awareness and beauty with amusing eccentricity and a pair of revelatory performances. Marvel superhero Stan is stellar as a disfigured man with neurofibromatosis given a miracle “cure” that makes his life hell, and Adam Pearson, a British actor living with the rare disorder in real life, proves a refreshing and movie-stealing delight.

Edward (Stan) is a New York actor who does cheesy corporate inclusivity training videos, where employees learn to treat everyone with respect. It doesn’t happen in his real life: He’s mocked, laughed at or just roundly dismissed because of his facial tumors.

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The only person who isn’t a jerk to Edward is his flirty next-door neighbor, aspiring playwright Ingrid (Renate Reinsve), and they strike up an awkward friendship where she sort of digs him and he doesn’t have a clue what to do.

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Edward’s condition has worsened to the point where he can’t see out of one eye. He takes his doctor’s advice to sign up for an experimental drug and is given a mask of his original face to wear for a sense of normalcy once the medication begins to work. Oh, it does work, exceedingly well – the body-horror sequence where the tumors come off his face is particularly gnarly – and he's left looking pretty handsome, ready to be a new man, and Ingrid overhears him telling people that Edward is “dead.”

As years pass, he becomes a star real estate agent now calling himself Guy who reeks of confidence. But while the artifice has changed, internally he’s still an insecure mess. That comes out when he discovers that Ingrid has written a play about Edward's life.

Guy wears his mask to the auditions and gets the part, partly because Ingrid feels a connection with him. But he also meets Oswald (Pearson), who looks exactly like he used to but the new guy is beloved as the gregarious, effusive life of every party. Oswald wants to be his friend yet the tense situation veers dicey when Guy becomes jealous, winds up losing his role to Oswald and grows violently unhinged.

Thanks to prosthetics designer Mike Marino – nominated for an Oscar for “Coming 2 America” (and likely getting another nod for this) – Stan is unrecognizable and plays Edward as aloof and shy, tapping back into all that once his macho facade crumbles as Guy.

In the better of his two transformative roles this awards season (though quite good as Donald Trump in "The Apprentice"), Stan is wonderfully off-kilter in "Different Man" and it’s great to see his dour personality contrasted with the lovable Pearson's. A veteran of English TV and the Scarlett Johansson film “Under the Skin,” the newcomer pops with innate charisma and friendliness as it becomes clear Oswald is the guy Edward wanted and thought he would be, not this other Guy.

While the ending loses steam as “Different Man” gets in its own bizarre head, the film maintains a certain heady, psychological trippiness. Having Edward and Oswald be almost mirror images of one another adds a mind-bending slant to an already deep tale that tackles a society that often mistreats someone considered “other” and holds the makeover in high regard.

With strangely thoughtful panache and a helping of absurdity, Schimberg makes us rethink how we look at people and ourselves alike – and who’s to blame when we don’t like the view.