A Different Man (2024) – A Better Man

Released: 24th October 2024
Seen: 2nd Feburary 2025

Every year that I’ve done this blog, there’s this weird little period around February-March where I go back to the year before and review a few films I missed just because they got nominated for Oscars. It’s always a little odd because sometimes I’ll stumble on a movie that should’ve been on the best list or maybe get some context for a cinematic trend that wasn’t quite making sense or even just have to ask “Why is this film only nominated in one category”. A Different Man was only nominated for a single Oscar this year – for Makeup and Hairstyling – but having gotten the chance to watch it, it feels genuinely stunning that it wasn’t in more though it’s also probably going to play a role in its lead actor’s chances of an award this year.

A Different Man follows socially awkward Edward Lemuel (Sebastian Stan), a struggling actor who has a confidence issue that also happens to have neurofibromatosis, causing him to have a serious set of facial differences that he struggles to handle due to how society treats him. The only person he knows who treats him well is his neighbour, aspiring writer Ingrid Vold (Renate Reinsve) with whom he starts to form a friendship. One day Edward hears about an experimental treatment that could cure him of his condition so he takes part in it – sure enough the experiment works and Edward soon looks like… well, like Sebastian Stan normally looks which would be considered an upgrade for 99% off the population. 

With a new face, Edward gives himself the name Guy Moratz and claims that “Edward” killed himself so he can start a new life. Now known as Guy, he stumbles upon Ingrid’s new show which happens to be named Edward and is about a man with neurofibromatosis and gets the lead part. All seems well at first but soon Guy starts seeing how people really think about those with serious facial differences, including how Ingrid treats him differently which takes a toll on his mental state… oh, and it also doesn’t help that Oswald (Adam Pearson), another man with neurofibromatosis, has turned up to be in the show and seems to be the most confident man that Guy has ever met. 

A Different Man is playing around with how society treats those who are marginalised and doing it fascinatingly. For a lot of the early parts of the film, we’re asked to notice the ways that people treat the main character, the looks he gets on the bus or the way people tip-toe around him and try not to even look at his face and it’s heartbreaking because you can see how all of this has kind of ruined Edward/Guy’s mental state. Right from the start he clearly has social anxiety  so bad he won’t even call a maintenance worker to fix a giant hole in his roof out of fear that someone will see him and judge him, a social awkwardness that lingers even after he gets the magical “Turn into a person who looks like Sebastian Stan” treatment because this man has been programmed by society to fear everything. It’s unflinching in its discomfort, it wants you to feel bad for our lead character as much as possible so when it’s time for Oswald to turn up with all the confidence in the world you start to question how much of this is because of society and how much is just Edward being a sad sack… spoilers, it’s still society but Edward isn’t exactly helping himself either. 

To leap right to the big Oscar category, it’s no shock that A Different Man has a best Makeup award nomination because the way they made Sebastian Stan look like he had a realistic case of neurofibromatosis is incredible and everyone in the team should feel proud of what they pulled off. Considering that there are several people in this film who have real facial differences it’s impressive to see how Sebastian Stan’s makeup looks right beside them. Even the non-prosthetic mask that’s meant to mimic Edward’s original face looks fantastic, holding up well in some of A Different Man’s more confronting moments. It more than deserves that nomination, it’s just a little stunning that Stan wasn’t nominated for this performance too along with Adam Pearson for supporting, the script and the director (though I have a feeling that this performance might also help Stan’s chances of winning the Best Actor award anyway since he has the nomination for The Apprentice and it’s not unheard of for an actor with several great performances in one year to get an award because a non-nominated film helped show their range). So yeah, A Different Man earned its nomination, it should have received more.

What A Different Man also deserved more was people watching it to hopefully learn something because this film is really not subtle in its talks of exploitation or how we treat people differently. Since the majority of A Different Man revolves around a play named after the central character, hearing our ostensibly liberal, kind main character Ingrid claim to have fully invented Edward while talking to the man the character is based on is kind of shocking and speaks to how marginalised stories get stolen by those in positions of power all the time. This happens a few times where people will be nice to the faces of those with differences before revealing their true thoughts when they think they’re just talking to another ‘normal’ person, it’s confronting and powerful and speaks to how well-written this film is. It’s playing with a loaded gun, a topic that needs to be talked about and is often hard to articulate well but does it spectacularly.

Even though A Different Man is led by Sebastian Stan giving a great performance, it’s the work of Adam Pearson that gives the film its real power. If there is anyone who deserves to be a bigger name after A Different Man, it’s Adam because his charm offensive is carrying the film from start to finish. His entrance alone makes you take notice, he has an undeniable aura about him that just pulls you in and you can see how he can make it through a world that might push people who look like him aside just on charm alone… which makes it heartbreaking when there’s those moments where people talk behind his back, you can almost feel he knows it’s happening but doesn’t bring it up as a defence mechanism. It’s such a grand layered performance that has me hoping that someone is finding ways to put Adam Pearson in a ton of other work because he should be a bigger star already.

I’ve seen some people call A Different Man provocative and that genuinely fits, it’s intending to provoke you with its message and it damn well succeeds at it. It’s not only a story about how society treats those who are different but about how that kind of treatment can have lingering impacts, Edward is pretty much a complete nervous wreck for the whole film even after he turns fully into Guy and it’s kind of hard not to pin a lot of that on several decades of society drumming that into his head. It’s powerful and pointed, political without being preachy (not that there’s anything wrong with being preachy sometimes, some things absolutely call for it). It’s a film that deserves more attention than it’s had and is probably going to get, hopefully being nominated for one Oscar will help that because this is something that deserves to be seen for the beautiful piece of art that it is.