Director Aaron Schimberg understands his latest movie, “A Different Man,” will make audiences uncomfortable.
“People are made uncomfortable by disfigurement and, therefore, they're made uncomfortable by films about disfigurement,” he said to Salon. But the film, which hit theaters this Friday, is an attempt to upend many of the narrative tropes that have defined stories about disfigured and disabled people since time immemorial.
“A Different Man” is a different type of movie, pun intended. It follows Edward (Sebastian Stan), a lonely man with a severe facial disfigurement who spends his time living in isolation. He’s presented with a scientific cure for his face and immediately jumps on the opportunity. Now, looking like an average person, Edward awaits the new changes in his life. But things grind to a halt when he meets Oswald (Adam Pearson), a gregarious extrovert with Edward’s former facial issues.
For disabled viewers, “A Different Man” is open about topics like ableism and society’s inability to learn about people with disabilities. “I was on the Staten Island Ferry on Monday and people just kept coming [up to me],” said star Adam Pearson. Pearson was the muse for director and writer Schimberg, the two previously working together on the 2018 feature “Chained for Life.” “I’m really writing an homage to Adam,” said Schimberg. “By the end of this film, Sebastian Stan is going to be looking at Adam Pearson and feel envy and jealousy, and that's something that I don't think audiences have ever seen before, and they're going to understand why he's jealous.”
Though there is a desire to foster conversations with those who are able-bodied and don’t tend to watch disability narratives, Schimberg also filled the frame with relatable moments for disabled audiences, such as a moment where Edward is waved at by a random person. “It certainly happened to me,” said Schimberg, who has a cleft palate. “I knew that some of us would recognize that experience.”
It’s something completely different in narratives about disabled characters, where so often they are subjects to be pitied, not envied. Movies about disability since Conrad Veidt played the tragic Gwynplaine in 1928’s “The Man Who Laughs” generally present disability as a lack or loss of something. The able-bodied character, more often than not, is there to act as a bridge between the audience and the disabled character. The audience is always meant to identify with the abled character, not the disabled one. All of that is twisted within “A Different Man,” where the audience’s loyalties shift once Edward is “cured” and Oswald arrives.
“Those stereotypes, they've always been around, and that's all people know,” said Stan. “Largely because there hasn't been enough exposure for people to see things differently.” For the Marvel actor, he was drawn more to the smart and meaningful way Schimberg’s script was written and how it presents “a wrestling game” people, of all abilities, have with identity. Too often, Stan admitted, people are left to ask for permission to have conversations similar to what the movie brings up. Audiences might be afraid to ask about disability tropes or if certain portrayals are harmful for fear of admitting they don’t know. “We don't have a lot of encouragement towards the kind of conversation we're having right now,” he said.
“In order to challenge stereotypes they first need to establish they exist,” said Pearson. One scene, in particular, highlights how the lack of disabled representation on-screen manifests into awkward encounters in reality. Edward, an aspiring actor, is part of a workplace video on how to treat your disfigured coworker. The scene itself, particularly if you are disabled, is equal parts cringe-worthy and hilarious in its painful realities. In an initial draft of the script, that scene was changed somewhat. “I [originally] had Edward working in an office and the genesis of that scene was somebody comes up to Edward in the office and they're suddenly very nice to him,” said Schimberg. “They ask him to go to a party or something and, later, Edward’s cleaning the office and he sees that a video has been played to all his coworkers.” Schimberg said he looked at a lot of employee training videos and much of the narration was based on actual videos corporations play regarding treatment of those with disabilities. “I changed it slightly for copyright purposes,” he said.
A key element of what makes “A Different Man” so unique is how it presents both Oswald and Edward, at times, in lights that can be positive or negative. Is Edward’s isolation a result of ableism or his own self-imposed desire to avoid connection? Both things can be true. While some audiences might see various characters as flawed or villainous – particularly Renate Reinsve’s Ingrid, the pretty neighbor/director Edward and Oswald befriend – he didn’t want to project a concept of heroes and villains. “I sympathize with all these characters on some level,” he said.
Pearson is excited that audiences will set up debate and cause people to actually discuss what disability narratives look like. “Up until quite recently, scientists believed if you had more than one disabled person in a film, the universe would explode,” Pearson jokes. “It just holds up all these mirrors at any given turn and lets the audience make up their own minds. And, hopefully, in those moments, audiences are pushing through that discomfort or that awkwardness.
“A Different Man” has the ability to open the door to more nuanced portrayals of disability in the movies. Outside of that, it remains a visceral, loopy story of identity and aesthetics.
"A Different Man" is in theaters now across the U.S.
