A Different Man (2024) (2024)

Popular reviews

• Review by crousee ★★★★ 19

  "the substance" but for boys

• Review by demi adejuyigbe ★★★★★ 12

  The Seb Stan-ce.

  One of my favorites of the year. Unbelievably funny and smart, really fun and clever script, unravels in a brilliant way. The camerawork and editing are so peculiar that you feel like they were done for a different movie until a few key moments clue you in to what's going on and then I really sunk into it. Not the first to say it's Charlie Kaufman-esque but I also felt like I was watching The Curse at times? Also very Frank Grimes, in how goofy and seemingly insane everyone in the world around the protagonist is until it becomes clear that he's the most insane one– which is maybe my favorite type of character dynamic in a movie. There's a brief few scenes where Stan is quite literally doing Heath Ledger's Joker and I couldn't stop cackling. Definitely gonna watch this again, immediately planning to watch Aaron Schimberg's other stuff, I loved loved loved it.

• Review by hudson ★★★★½ 6

  still the worst person in the world

• Review by davidehrlich ★★★★

  A caustically funny cosmic joke of a film about an insecure actor who finds a miracle cure for his facial disfigurement, only to be upstaged by a stranger who oozes self-confidence despite (still) having the exact same condition the main character had once allowed to hold him back, Aaron Schimberg’s ruthless and Escher-like “A Different Man” might have felt cruel if not for how cleverly it complicates its punchline.

  Are we supposed to be laughing at someone — someone who’s been treated like a monster for his entire adult life — just because they couldn’t resist the opportunity to shed their skin? Anyone familiar with Schimberg’s “Chained for Life,” which similarly defenestrated the notion of disabilities as “God’s mistakes,” already…

• Review by the film drunk ★★★★ 5

  I didn’t think Sebastian Stan would end up being the most interesting actor outside the MCU but I’m glad for it

• Review by ash ★★★★ 1

  *frantically googles ‘was that Sebastian Stan’s real penis’*

• Review by noen ★★★★ 9

  Sebastian Stan the man you are.

• Review by anto ★★★½ 3

  Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself? Younger, more beautiful, more perfect. One single injection unlocks your DNA, starting a new cellular division, that will release another version of yourself. This is the Substance. You are the matrix. Everything comes from you. Everything is you. This is simply a better version of yourself. You just have to share. One week for one and one week for the other. A perfect balance of seven days each. The one and only thing not to forget: You. Are. One. You can't escape from yourself.

• Review by Delaney Vetter ★★★★★ 3

  Leave it to a John Wilkes Booth joke to knock me out of my seat

• Review by 24framesofnick ★★★★ 2

  Don’t dilute the medicinal value

  Darkly hilarious and intelligently crafted, A Different Man is a wonderful exploration of our annoying ass egotistical thoughts.

  From a brilliant dissection of how we treat those different than us to our innate desires to compete and compare; it’s a great showcase for representation and the meta discussion of how we view it.

  Performances are stellar. Adam Pearson steals every second which fits perfectly with how we are supposed to view him through Edward’s eyes.

  It’s also perfectly shot. Feeling like an anxiety filled almost voyeuristic stage production.

  A bit too slow towards its ending but I appreciate how it ties a neat little bow on the end

• Review by Josh Lewis ★★★★ 4

  Doing The Elephant Man as a cruel and ironic sci-fi rom-com, tragic-comic body horror parable, and meta industry satire simultaneously feels like a concept that could and probably should have gone horribly wrong, so all credit to Schimberg and his central trio of actors that this is consistently hilarious and genuinely sharp and observational. Maybe the word "sensitive" isn't exactly the correct way to describe it but it's clear that this guy cares a lot about and has spent a lot of time thinking about what it sociologically and psychologically means to be disfigured, how people internalize or behave based on how they are perceived and treated, who people really are beneath their superficial presentation and whether you can truly…

• Review by Ella Kemp ★★★★½

  I’ve said it before but I find it so thrilling when fears and concerns and secrets and doubts we typically think only women have are explored far beyond the lens of feminism. The horror of beauty and sex and praise fucks us all!

  I so rarely find meta fiction about making art interesting for many folks who don’twork in the arts (and I also have very little patience for it), but this feels like surely anyone watching could/should/would be affected. Art is the tip of the iceberg.

  Schimberg’s script is so caustically funny, but it only holds so much power because of its intelligence, earnest and philosophical, I think, beyond the potential trappings of what way too many contemporary filmmakers…