Though Aaron Schimberg’s 70s-styled black comedy seems to be about how we address disability as a society, it’s really about casting, and not just its own choice of actors. The main plot line has to do with a small Off-Broadway theater production that hires the protagonist, an amateur actor who is conventionally handsome, to portray a man with a facial deformity. And while he is convincing in the role, eventually he’s usurped by another amateur actor who really does have a facial deformity but who is also more charming, charismatic, and generally likable than the so-called normal guy. If that description sounds overly reductive, it’s because it is: Schimberg loads the context with more pointed stuff than it can contain.

Our normal guy, Edward, starts out the movie with the facial deformity neurofibromatosis, a condition that makes him overly-conscious of the stares he believes he attracts. He makes a small living taking advantage of his condition by appearing in patronizing PSA videos about disabled people but also occasionally auditions for regular acting jobs, hoping that directors will look past his appearance to what he thinks is his talent. Edward resides in a ratty one bedroom apartment with a hole in the ceiling and lives from day-to-day in a constant funk. One day he meets his new next door neighbor, Ingrid (Renate Reinsve), a recent arrival from Norway who is a budding playwright. She takes to Edward and befriends him, though it’s soon clear that she sees him as material for a play. Meanwhile, Edward is undergoing experimental treatment by a group of loopy doctors whose attitude is hilariously patronizing, and—fantastically, implausibly—Edward loses the tumors on his face to reveal someone who most people would consider good-looking. Schimberg conveniently jumps ahead months to when Edward is now a successful real estate salesman thanks to his looks and living in a much nicer apartment, but, in essence, he’s still the off-puttingly insecure man he was before his transformation—which he has not revealed to anyone he knew previously, having assumed a new identity as “Guy.” When he passes by a theater auditioning actors for Ingrid’s new play called Edward, he tries out and gets the part, with Ingrid totally oblivious to the fact that Guy is, in fact, Edward. In his mind, he has achieved a perfect level of discreet payback toward those he believed tormented him in the past, but then a British bloke named Oswald (Adam Pearson), who really has neurofibromatosis, shows up to compliment the production and is talked into hanging around to provide straight-from-the-horse’s-mouth advice, subsequently dominating the production to Guy/Edward’s increasing consternation.

Edward’s “revenge” is thus turned against itself, because he can’t compete with Oswald’s natural worldly appeal. Not only do people in general not pay attention to Oswald’s appearance, but women fall easily into his arms due to his outgoing personality, something Edward/Guy could never develop because of what he really is. Though much of A Different Man feels forced in its almost sadistic treatment of Edward’s destructive self-image, it plays out with a disarmingly sardonic regard for human foible. Edward’s tragic trajectory would be ridiculously cruel if it also wasn’t so funny. 

Opens July 11 in Tokyo at Human Trust Cinema Yurakucho (03-6259-8608), Kino Cinema Shinjuku (03-5315-0978), Human Trust Cinema Shibuya (03-5468-5551).

A Different Man home page in Japanese

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