Great art is seldom made while treading lightly, though when it comes to social microcosms, a little trepidation is understandable. Whether defined by race, sexuality, religion, or disability, movies made to honor marginalized communities tend to elide hard truths in favor of tidy conclusions, dooming the groups they supposedly champion by way of patronizing lionization. This is doubly true of flicks made by outsiders, a primary force behind identity politics coming to rule the cinematic landscape. It may seem draconian for those accustomed to tales of uplift that mistake sympathy for empathy, feel-good affairs like CODA and The Peanut Butter Falcon having long ruled the day, but Aaron Schimberg isn’t here for your niceties. He’d rather risk confusion and ire than tired safety, and anyone watching A Different Man needn’t worry about getting bored.

The writer/director’s first violation of good taste comes in the form of casting, caking his devastatingly handsome leading man in mounds of make-up, a costume in arch opposition to our current, morally refined moment. Said hunk is Sebastian Stan, here playing an aspiring actor named Edward whose neurofibromatosis results in a hermetic existence and world-weary timidity. That is until a medical procedure straight out of the science fiction playbook comes knocking at his door, offering a fresh start, and hopefully a chance to gain the affections of Ingrid (Renate Reinsve), his beautiful, vivacious playwright of a neighbor. The Faustian bargain seems like a no-brainer until Edward finds himself as the inspiration for Ingrid’s latest work, setting him on a path to prove he’s the right man for the role, his newly-minted objective beauty be damned.

That Schimberg was born with a bilateral cleft lip does not immediately align him with the characters of his latest feature, though in the hands of someone like Ingrid, the differences are negligible. Operating as a rollicking cautionary tale against its own existence, A Different Man acknowledges the limits of its authorship through dramaturgy rather than careful treading, layering one call for outrage on top of another until the viewer cries uncle. Goading an audience into fiery self-righteousness is a dead end if you haven’t done your homework, but Schimberg’s diamond of a screenplay is ready for the final exam, cleverly incriminating its own writer through thickets of contradiction and misbegotten jealousy. Exoticism is baked into the premise by way of literal theatrics, with Ingrid’s well-intentioned vampirism mirroring Schimberg’s own, eagerly fielding questions as to who has the right to tell whose story, eyes glinting with mischief.

The playful blood-sucking extends to the movie’s thematic underpinning as well, though A Different Man’s nightmarish trip down the rabbit hole shouldn’t be dismissed as Lynchian cosplay. It’s more Charlie Kaufman anyway, or Franz Kafka for that matter, filtering a knowable sense of isolation and anonymity through transformation and the dysmorphic disorder that it begets. The labyrinth here seems determined to change all who enter, though whether it’s more geared more toward wholesale reconfiguration or simple revelation remains open to inquiry. This, again, is Schimberg prodding audiences over their preconceived biases, ones that look to cast Edward in the saintly light of victimhood before he’s even moved a muscle.

All the ideological pyrotechnics would prove a bit laborious if it weren’t for the flick’s puckish sense of humor, which is where the Kaufman of it all shines through most directly. The long-tenured poet laureate of going to hell in a handbasket, the Adaptation. and Synecdoche, New York scribe’s fingerprints are all over A Different Man, casting all the proceedings in the dour light of black comedy. The New York setting doesn’t hurt either, placing the movie in the ever-expanding lineage of Martin Scorsese’s After Hours, but other imitators have been too focused on their own hairbrained machinations to leave space for the outside world. Schimberg’s too invested in The Big Apple’s myriad oddities and trap doors to get carried away in his own creation, observing the sudden left turns and treacherous alleyways with the deranged mirth of a court jester.

A more recent comp for A Different Man’s heedless stroll through corporeal form’s haunted funhouse is The Substance, though Coralie Fargeat’s film prefers muscle to mind. By casually allowing viewers to misread its feminist satire as something more multi-tiered than a high-powered megaphone for rage, its director obviated potential criticism through an awe-inspiring show of force. Schimberg’s rapscallion ways are more mild mannered, and thus in keeping with Todd Haynes’ May December, another film about the ethics of depiction that employs thespian exploits as a cagey form of cover. It’s also more attuned to Man’s intellectually-skewing provocations, and while The Substance’s feral howl is mesmerizing to behold, the agreeable message on hand makes the whole enterprise less sticky. Schimberg and Haynes’ flicks are covered in super glue, attaching themselves to the subconscious in a manner that’s difficult to shake.

With all the rigorously constructed raw material at their disposal, the cast need only serve as adhesive to hold the whole thing together, though no one here is coasting. Stan makes the most of the ostensible dual role, his bodily tics and retiring mannerisms providing a clear through line between Edward’s multiple iterations, but holding the center is never as fun as trying to knock it off its axis. Half of that enviable task is allotted to Reinsve, making her English feature debut after the success of 2021’s The Worst Person in the World, positively radiant when viewed from Edward’s vantage point, which mistakes her thoughtless appropriation of others’ suffering as a good faith endeavor. The other side of the coin is Adam Pearson, a late-breaking infiltrator with the means and mentality to steal all that our main character so grievously covets right out from under him. 

It goes without saying that Pearson, whose real-life neurofibromatosis affliction requires no cosmetics, isn’t afforded too many leading parts, let alone ones as a suave, galavanting antagonist. He’s clearly relishing his moment in the spotlight, as are the fellow community members who fill out A Different Man’s margins, freed from the shackles of pandering inclusivity, playing grifters in their own right. Misguided as all projections may be, one gets the feeling that, at least for the actors on screen, Schimberg’s film provides an overdue respite from all the well-meaning and ill-conceived roles to which they’re likely accustomed. Our dutiful sympathy can wait for next time. Today is all about shattering misconceptions, and letting the tricksters run amok.