Aaron Schimberg‘s A Different Man opened around five weeks ago and promptly bombed. I can’t imagine why. If there was ever a dark comedy made for Joe and Jane Popcorn…a film that’s partly about a pretty, sexy theatre director (Renate Reinsve) falling in love with a modern-day Elephant Man (i.e., a guy afflicted with neurofibramitosis, played by Adam Pearson)…talk about a date movie!
The theme, as you might presume if you’ve seen the trailer, is basically “you are what you are inside” or, if you will, “ignore the physical in order to concentrate on the interiors.”
I was initially resigned to watching it last month, but at the end of the day I couldn’t go there. I wimped out.
A majority of critics, possibly fearful of being labelled as brusque or cruel or insensitive by shrieking neurofibromatosis wokies, bestowed thumbs-up reviews (92% Rotten Tomatoes, 78% Metacritic).
I didn’t want to see it for obvious reasons (one of them being that I didn’t want to be reminded of nature’s random cruelty), but now that I’ve read the Wiki synopsis I’m stunned to learn that Renate’s character enters into a full-on, fucking-and-fellatio relationship with Pearson’s Oswald character.
On top of which before hooking up with Oswald, Renate’s Ingrid is sexually involved with Sebastian Stan‘s Edward, another victim of neurofibromatosis who is magically transformed into a normal-looking fellow through surgery.
A friend explains that A Different Man is presented as a tongue-in-cheek fable or fairy tale. I don’t care whose tongue is in what cheek…there’s no buying Renate Reinsve fucking a charming Elephant Man…no!
We all understand the necessity of expressing kindness and compassion in our lives, but I’m not sure I can do this…cue the neurofibromatosis wokies…”you slithering bastard…you need to commit suicide!”
A Better Man will begin streaming on Tuesday, September 5.
The last time I watched a film about a man suffering from neurofibromatosis was 44 years ago, when I saw David Lynch‘s The Elephant Man (’80).
I went through a similar dramatic experience five years later when I saw Peter Bogdanovich‘s Mask (’85), although Eric Stoltz‘s Rocky Dennis character was a victim of craniodiaphyseal dysplasia, “an extremely rare sclerotic bone disorder”.
In The Elephant Man, the cruelty that poor John Merrick (John Hurt) endured at the hands of Mr. Bytes (Freddie Jones) and others was ugly, and the kindness and compassion that Merrick received from Dr. Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins), Madge Kendal (Anne Bancroft), Frances Gomm (John Gielgud) and Mrs. Mothershead (Wendy Hiller) was heartwarming.
I naturally imagined that I was in league with the good guys in this film, and that made me feel good about myself.
But of course, Hurt’s Merrick wasn’t really suffering from this horrid disease — his appearance was a demonstration of masterful, tour de force technique from makeup guy Christopher Tucker. Audience members naturally knew that from the get-go.
Now I’m obliged to sit through Aaron Schimberg‘s A Different Man (A24), a black comedy about three characters — (a) Edward (Sebastian Stan), a neurofibromatosis guy who is surgically transformed into a normal-looking dude, (b) an actual neurofibromatosis sufferer named Oswald (Adam Pearson) who isn’t saved by surgery, and (c) Ingrid (Renate Reinsve) who comes to know both Edward and Oswald.
I’m sorry but the trailer for Schimberg’s film, which debuted at Sundance ’24, suggests hard work. Makeup is one thing, but I find it uncomfortable and difficult to spend time with people who are actually grotesque and deformed. You can call me an insensitive brute, but I don’t particularly want to see A Different Man because of this. Put another way, I’ll see it but not without duress.
If you’re a neurofibromatosis wokey, however, you’ll not only condemn people like me but also bend over backwards to show the world what a kind and tolerant person you are. And that’s fine.
But there’s a scene in A Different Man in which a normal-looking woman takes Oswald’s head in her hands and kisses him, and there’s no way that’s tolerable for an average audience member. Forget it.
