Comedy
A Different Man (15A)
Review: Real beauty flourishes when you fully embrace and cherish your authentic self. However, if the person staring back in the mirror does not fit your perception of beauty, which has been polished to a lustre of unattainability by advertising, magazines, films, TV and social media, it is easy to allow comparative disappointment to wage a fierce internal battle with self-loathing. A Different Man is an ambling, New York-set tragicomedy written and directed by Aaron Schimberg, glimpsed through the eyes of a struggling actor with neurofibromatosis named Edward. The genetic condition has caused benign tumours to grow along his nerves and visibly manifest on his face and neck, drawing unkind and callous glances on the street.
Played with sensitivity by Sebastian Stan wearing prosthetics designed by Oscar-nominated makeup artist Mike Marino, Edward shrinks from the world outside audition rooms and instinctively seeks looks of disgust from strangers to self-sabotage his confidence. A radical medical procedure opens the possibility of altering his appearance and Schimberg’s picture mines absurdist humour from a decision to move forward with surgery, straying into the realms of blood-spattered horror in a disorienting final act that is one bitter pill too many for me to swallow. Stan’s performance is impeccably calibrated and he employs mannerisms before and after the medical intervention to convey deep-rooted social awkwardness that one character pithily likens to “Woody Allen… when he was young and a little nervous.”
Struggling actor Edward (Stan) subjects himself to experimental facial reconstructive surgery to lessen the visible signs of his neurofibromatosis. Neighbour and playwright Ingrid (Renate Reinsve) is one of the few people to see past his appearance but she refuses to let sparks of attraction catch fire, cautioning that, “I leave a trail of tragedy in my wake.” Miraculously, the tumours peel off Edward’s face and reveal a new visage.
He kills off his former self by telling neighbours that Edward committed suicide (which crestfallen Ingrid overhears) and reinvents himself as a successful real estate agent named Guy, who confidently closes deals and has his face plastered on posters on Subway trains. When Ingrid writes a semi-autobiographical stage work entitled Edward, Guy becomes fixated on playing the part using a prosthetic mask of his old face but a charismatic British actor named Oswald (Adam Pearson) with the condition beats him to the part.
A Different Man is a surreal fable replete with a cameo by Michael Shannon playing himself, which poses timely, conscience-pricking questions about how we look at ourselves and others. Pearson exudes an effervescence, easy-going charm and lightness absent from other characters, so we are immediately drawn to his debonair Brit abroad. Schimberg’s script preaches a familiar sermon of self-love, which isn’t always easy to practise. The greatest and most turbulent love affair of any life is with yourself.
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Musical
Joker: Folie A Deux (15)
Review: Five years after Todd Phillips’ Joker, the director and his Oscar-winning lead return to pick up Arthur Fleck’s story. Phoenix appears as a subdued Fleck in the dreary Arkham, hounded by the guards – including one played brilliantly by Brendan Gleeson – as he is fed medication and dumped in a barebones cell. He is awaiting trial for the murders he, or his alter-ego Joker, as his defence lawyer argues, committed, and his lawyer’s plan is to plead insanity, claiming he has a split personality to avoid the death penalty.
When Fleck meets Quinn at a prison singing club, she’s immediately drawn to him and his infamy. They form an instant connection which soon evolves into a folie a deux, a shared delusion that their lives are a musical, breaking intermittently into song and dance numbers. Gaga, as impossibly talented as she is, convincingly tones down her vocal skill to portray an amateur singer in a psychiatric hospital, while Phoenix adds more flair as the film goes on, including in a tapdance number which is genuinely impressive. The musical element to Joker: Folie A Deux adds a fun layer and allows a unique exploration of Arthur and Lee’s mental states, but it is also something of a distraction from the fact that, really, there’s not much going on in the plot.
There are only two main locations in the film, Arkham and the courthouse, and while the set design for the hospital/prison and the drama in court are both notable, the musical interludes, diverting as they may be, artificially extend the film’s run time to a too-long two hours and 19 minutes. There is barely any of the dark and grizzly violence or heart-pumping action scenes that fans of the Joker/Batman franchise as a whole love and expect, instead presenting a procedural drama that could have done with a bit more blood, gore and panache. It is disappointing that Gaga’s Lee was not given more character development or independent growth; she is certainly got the acting chops, and perhaps this would have given the plot some much-needed direction.
By the end, I did not feel like I understood Arthur Fleck and Joker any more than I already did from the 2019 film, and while I enjoyed letting the performances and production wash over me, I’m not sure Folie A Deux said anything more than Joker already has.
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