A Different Man (2024) Review

by Jack Hanley of Kinophila and HanleyOnFilm.com

Aaron Schimberg's A DIFFERENT MAN plays Kaufman by way of Kafka in a bleakly black-comedic examination of both the faces you are given... and the ones we fashion for ourselves.Anchored by brilliant turns from both Pearson and Stan, the film mostly succeeds in its audacious (if not scattershot) narrative setup—and despite its failure to stick the landing, it’s more than worth it for some genuinely laugh-out-loud moments of poignant absurdity. Between this and THE APPRENTICE, has any other actor had as great a year of body-horror brilliance as Sebastian Stan?

*** out of *****

Jack Hanley is a Boulder-based film scholar, podcaster, and critic. He is a programmer with the Chicago Underground Film Festival and Boulder International Film Festival. He is one-half of Blindspotting: A Film Discovery Podcast and Flicker with Jack and Scott on YouTube. Find him at Kinophilia on Medium and at HanleyOnFilm.com