'A Different Man' at The Beverly Theater

This week, we review A DIFFERENT MAN (2024, 112 minutes) Directed by Aaron Schimberg.  Playing at The Beverly, November 22-30. For tickets and info: The Beverly Theater

Aspiring actor Edward undergoes a radical medical procedure to drastically transform his appearance. But his new dream face quickly turns into a nightmare, as he loses out on the role he was born to play and becomes obsessed with reclaiming what was lost. Writer-director Aaron Schimberg's latest film is a surreal, singular tale of one man's desire to self-actualize. Starring Sebastian Stan (Captain America: The Winter Soldier), Adam Pearson (Under the Skin, Chained for Life) and Renate Reinsve (Oslo August 31, The Worst Person in the World).

Credits:
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HOSTS - Davey Parks, Simona Grigonis, Jeff Wallitsch
 
Production Sound Mixer - Angelica-Rose Keenum

Co-Producer/Editor - Lilly Richie

PRODUCERS - Tom Bjelic, Sam Decker

EXECUTIVE PRODUCED BY - Adam Paul, Roudi Boroumand 

To read the hosts' reviews, head over to substack.com/thefilmdeptpodcast
 
This semester, The Film Department has teamed up with the mad geniuses of The Beverly Theater. Imagined by The Rogers Foundation, The Beverly Theater brings cinematic connectivity, novel collaborations, live happenings, cultural portals, and a zest for independent spirits to DTLV. With a mission to stage uncommon cinematic, literary, and live experiences, The Beverly Theater is Las Vegas’ first and only independent film house, storytelling arena, and live music venue.
For the latest screenings and events at The Beverly, visit thebeverlytheater.com
 
The Film Department Podcast is supported by UNLV Film. At the film department of the University of Nevada Las Vegas, every story has a beginning.With degree programs for undergraduates and graduates, state of the art equipment and facilities, incredible professional internships around the world, and expert guest speakers, students discover the power and potential of cinema as they prepare for the film and television industry… and beyond.
 
Learn more at UNLV.EDU/FILM UNLV Film. Find your voice. Tell your story.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The Film Department is supported by UNLV Film.

(00:04):
At the Film Department of the University of Nevada Las Vegas, every story has a beginning.
With degree programs for undergraduates and graduates, state-of-the-art equipment and
facilities, incredible professional internships around the world, and expert guest speakers,
students discover the power and potential of cinema as they prepare for the film and

(00:24):
television industry and beyond.
Learn more at unlv.edu/film.
UNLV Film.
Find your voice.
Tell your story.
Hello and welcome to the Film Department, the official movie review podcast and more of

(00:46):
UNLV Film.
This semester, we'll be talking about films screened at our partner movie house, The Beverly
Theater, Las Vegas's only independent film and performance venue.
I'm Davey Parks.
I am a fourth year film major currently about to graduate, which is so exciting, and I'm
joined by...
Hello, I'm Jeff.
I am a...
Oh my god, what year am I already forgot?

(01:08):
Hello, I'm Jeff.
I am a third year film major.
I am also the president of Freight Club.
I was out for the last episode, but I'm back.
What's happening?
Happy back, Jeff.
Thank you.
Hi, I am Samona.
I am also a third year film major.
Glad to have you back, Jeff.
Yeah, we're so excited.
You guys, we're all back to the games all here.
I know.
It's been a second.

(01:29):
Before we get into this week's movie, which I have a lot to say about, what have you guys
seen recently?
Anything locked in the chamber that you guys saw and really enjoyed recently?
Well, I just saw Nora.
I've been meaning to see that for...
I mean, ever since it came out, I've been thinking about it for a long time, finally got
to see it.

(01:49):
I absolutely love Sean Baker. His expression of realism is... yeah.
I don't want to spoil anything about it, but I really loved it.
I think if you live in Las Vegas, you have an obligation to go see a Nora.
Yeah.
Because it's the rare occasion that a movie is partially set in Las Vegas and filmed on
location at the Palms, which is really cool.

(02:10):
And Freemont Street, I have a friend who works at an architecture firm.
He said that the scene that happens later on down the road, I won't spoil what happened
in it, but was filmed in the building directly behind his, which is really cool.
I also agree.
I think Mikey Madison and Sean Baker both are incredible at their talents.
Yeah.

(02:30):
Nora, I think, is going to be the standout film of the year.
I think it's definitely geared to get a few Oscar noms.
I think Mikey and his friends definitely are running for best actress.
I totally recommend going to see it just because, you know, Sean Baker, you know, if you've
seen any of his works, you know, a lot of what he does and how he talks about, you know, sex

(02:51):
workers and how he talks about just life in general.
And I really like that you use, you know, the idea of like realism.
Yeah.
Because he has this very magical realism to his movies and then just some of the funniest sequences
I've seen in cinema all year, we're in a Nora.
So, yeah, I totally agree.
As an Eastern European, also like, some of the characters were, and like some of the writing

(03:13):
to hearing Russian in a film is, I mean, in an American film is like pretty interesting
and like, yeah, I really enjoyed the kind of meshing of cultures also.
Yeah.
I won't give anything away or spoil anything, but I just love that.
Nora takes place in a universe where everybody knows Russian.

(03:33):
Yeah.
Like every, every person who you just like run into on the street happens to know a little
bit of Russian, which I thought was really funny.
What about you, Jeff?
I haven't seen a Nora yet.
I do really want to.
The trailer look great.
I haven't seen any of Sean Baker's prior films.
I do love Mikey Madison.
I thought she was great and scream and once upon a time in Hollywood.
So, I will definitely check it out.
I live in Vegas, so I have to.
In terms of like recent movies, I haven't really seen a lot.

(03:55):
I think the most recent, this is like early October, is Saturday night, the new Jason Reiman
movie about Saturday Night Live.
It's really good.
I don't know.
Have you guys seen that one?
I've not, but I've heard a lot of really good stuff about it.
Yeah, it's great.
If you love sort of like a really fast paced, energetic, dialogue driven kind of movie,
it's that movie.
Awesome.
Yeah.
I'm a little late.
I know Halloween is over, but I finally got around watching Smile 2.

(04:18):
And you know what?
Not a bad movie.
I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I enjoyed it also.
Yeah, I heard, you know, it's better than the first one.
It's, you know, has a lot of really great acting in it and I agree.
Naomi Scott, I think is going to be remembered as like one of the great like horror performances
of the decade.
She really elevates the movie to another level.
She just goes full in and there's really some really jarring and shocking scenes in it.

(04:44):
I think what I find really interesting about the Smile movies is, you know, they're these
big budget studio horror movies, but they're really bleak, you know, they're textually about
things like mental illness and suicide and they're not really seeking to provide like
a solution.
Like they're just about the horror.
I mean, I thought that's really interesting for like a studio movie to go ahead and do.

(05:05):
So if you're a horror fan and, you know, maybe you're sitting on the fence about whether or
not, you know, paying the $20 it costs to get a movie ticket to go see Smile, go do it.
I think it's a really good time and, you know, I think there's a lot to be said about the
power of horror cinema.
I had a stressful week and, you know, Smile 2 had me so scared that I forgot that I was

(05:25):
stressed and I thought that that was the best thing I could ask for from Smile 2.
So without further ado, let's talk about today's movie, which is a different man released
earlier this year at Sundance, made quite a bit of stir.

(05:47):
It was a big, you know, kind of sleeper hit, I think is a good way to call it.
Star Sebastian Stan.
I'd heard a lot about this movie just from the Buzz from its Festival release.
Or we, you know, talk about the movie, had you guys heard about it before watching it for
the pod?
I had heard about it before.
I had watched the trailer and I got honestly absolutely nothing out of the trailer.

(06:10):
So I didn't know what to expect for this viewing.
Yeah, I heard about it.
I heard Sebastian Stan was in a new movie, I heard Adam Pearson was in a new movie.
I didn't know anything at all about it.
I didn't know John Ra.
I tried, I watched the trailer.
I agree with what you said.
I didn't get at all what it was about.
And just kind of looking at the poster, I honestly thought it was going to be a horror movie

(06:31):
and I was very pleasantly surprised to find that it really isn't at all.
It's actually more of a comedy almost.
Yeah, I would have been thinking it was going to be like a really straightforward drama.
For those who...
That's what I thought too.
Yeah, I may not know what the film is about.
The film follows a aspiring actor Edward who undergoes a radical facial reconstructive
surgery in order to sort of fulfill his own desires and he is not prepared for the results

(06:54):
that come after.
We will be spoiling a little bit of the film talking about what happens but just I guess
cursory opinions, what do you guys think of the movie?
There were things that I definitely enjoyed about it.
Not to go too much into it, but I love the performances.
I had heard about Adam Pearson before.
He's in one of my favorite films under the skin.

(07:17):
So I was really excited to see him in something else.
But there were some other technical issues that kind of took me out of the film.
A lot of zooms, I noticed.
That's the one thing that stuck out.
There's a lot of really fast-paced zooms in it.
I really liked it, honestly.
My only real complaint with it is I thought the ending was a bit too abrupt but I was really

(07:37):
pleasantly surprised.
I thought it was kind of like an interesting mixture of genre in terms of you have kind
of a drama mixed with a psychological thriller mixed with a bit of a dark comedy too.
So I really liked that.
Like you said, performances I thought were all top notch.
I really liked the way it was shot too.
I love that sort of grainy old school film look.
So yeah, I really dug this movie.
Yeah, it was actually surprised to find out that this movie was at least partially shot in

(07:59):
16 millimeter film, which I thought was really cool.
I don't know which parts, but I would love to figure out what scenes they did digitally
and which they did on film.
Yeah, I think going in, I had heard that it was a bit of a dark comedy bordering on black
comedy.
I'm really really weary when people describe movies as dark comedies because I'm like,
"Oh, are we just going to be making fun of people?"

(08:21):
Especially considering the subject matter, I was really worried that the jokes were going
to be at specific people's expenses and stuff.
But I don't think that this movie does that.
And I actually, I really enjoyed this movie.
I thought it was really funny in a really vicious way.
I think the whole thing is sort of a single punch line that gets rolled out over the course

(08:43):
of the entire film's runtime, which I thought was really interesting.
I think Sebastian Stan's performance is really good.
It really reminds me, so many people talk about this movie is like, "Oh, the Substance But
For Men."
This idea of--
I kept seeing reviews.
So, yeah.
You go on Letterbox, and I think pretty much every review for the first 20 reviews is like

(09:04):
the Substance But For Men.
And I think that's kind of reductive, but I think this movie has a lot of similarities
with the John Frankheimer movie "Seconds." I was about this guy who gets like sort of facial
reconstruction surgery and is like living this new life.
But I really liked the direction that this movie took.
I think it has a lot to say about sort of like internalized hatred and how that externalizes

(09:31):
and the cycle that sort of comes from that.
Yeah, I definitely enjoyed the, you know, very focused themes on identity and like self-acceptance.
And I just think any film that kind of presents a new approach on that is definitely like
worth watching.
And I see a different man as one of those films.

(09:53):
I haven't seen the Substance yet.
I really need to.
That's like top of it.
I haven't seen it either.
But I mean, you have like that scene the first time when he actually does rip those chunks
of his face off and you see Sebastian Stan underneath.
I imagine that's probably a little bit connected to the Substance.
Yeah, I agree with everything you said in terms of themes of like identity, self-hatred.

(10:14):
I was really invested in the story of Edward.
His sort of journey is very interesting because he kind of starts off as somebody who obviously
has this disfigured face because of his condition.
And he's somebody that's very shy.
He's very nervous.
He has this neighbor, Ingrid, who is trying to flirt with him.
It seems like, but he is just not going for it.

(10:35):
He is behaving kind of awkwardly.
And when he just eventually transform into Sebastian Stan, right?
I just thought it was very cool to see him kind of like he gets like a bit of confidence
with this new face and he's going out to clubs and he's getting head in the bathroom or
whatever it is.
But then as he gets to know this new character played by Adam Pearson, Oswald I'm sure we'll

(10:56):
talk about him as well.
Just kind of seeing like, oh, it has nothing to do with my face.
It's the person underneath and I thought that was very interesting.
Yeah, I think where this movie really shines, it's a script.
I think so, there are so many tiny scenes that speak more than the actual dialogue themselves.
One that really stuck with me is the scene wherein Edward is sitting at the bar right after

(11:19):
his reconstruction surgery and this group of men come in and they're very rowdy and they're
very, you know, riled up and wound up and they're screaming and they're conjocelling him
around.
And it's the first time we see someone really approach him without having sort of electons
or any form of, you know, sympathy, they're just kind of taking him in to this group and

(11:40):
you see him, you know, look at them and they're yelling and screaming because they're very
excited, presumably for like a football game or something.
And he just starts screaming and he's like doing it in a very performative way.
And I thought that was really cool.
I know I would love to read what that scene is like in the script because it really shows
I think an awareness that the writer for this movie had about how we perform it socially.

(12:03):
And I know like me personally, like I, you know, there's a lot to relate to in this character
and I know I've been in situations before where maybe, you know, you're not sure how to
conduct yourself socially with the people that you're with or maybe you're, you know, with
a group of friends for the first time, your friends friends, you don't know them that well
and you're kind of paying attention to what they're doing and you're changing what you usually

(12:26):
do and how you usually perform to better fit into the group.
And I thought that was really fascinating watching in real time this character realize that
oh, these people are willing to accept me now based on my physical appearance.
So now I have to now change my like social aspect of myself and how I like my personality
goes.
And I thought that was really cool.
That was probably my favorite scene of the movie.

(12:47):
Yeah, you know, you get like that sort of that personality shift, but I also do like when
it kind of shifts back when this character of Oswald kind of starts seeping into this
friend group that he has with Ingrid and the other people that are putting on this play.
And you just get these really great sort of reaction shots of Sebastian Stan and he's just
like noticing he's paying attention and he there's like a look of like jealousy and contempt

(13:08):
when he's seeing just how easily Oswald can sort of interact with his friends.
I really like that too.
Well, I think like each character has such a duality to them that, you know, you don't
feel a certain way about Oswald about Ingrid, about Edward.
That's like they both have this like good and kind of bad to them.
And I thought that was really interesting to kind of notice that in each character.

(13:31):
Yeah, even just a little detail I noticed.
You know, Oswald's character that he's very outgoing.
He's very provisional.
He's very affable, but even his costumes like the clothes that they dress him in are very
nontraditional.
The scene where they're walking in the park.
He's wearing this sort of like flowy bordering on like sundress almost.

(13:51):
And I thought that was a really cool touch.
Like he just like how he dresses is not, you know, typical of how we typically associate
with men dressing.
And I thought that was a really cool touch.
And I think this movie is really interested in being a difficult movie.
Like, there's a lot of like, meta-textual stuff going on with the play and you know, scenes

(14:12):
where people are talking about a character in a play, but they're actually talking about
themself or they're actually talking about something else.
Like I'd say like 50% of the dialogue towards the second act of the movie is people
talking about something, but they're actually talking about something else.
And I think that this movie in and of itself asks a lot of questions of its audience, you
know, there's a scene where the playwright is talking about, well, you know, like, are we

(14:35):
making a victim out of this character?
Are we making sort of this like tragedy porn of like, oh, like feel bad for people who
with disfigurements and, you know, see them as these people who, you know, are outwardly
more deserving of more sympathy and, you know, like, feel bad for them, but what does that do
in turn?
I think the movie does the same thing and asking the audience like, well, you know, are we

(14:59):
supposed to feel bad for Oswald or Edward because of their deformities?
And is that making them sort of tokenizing them?
Like, you know, is that sort of feeding into the cycle of oversimplitizing with them?
Well, what's interesting?
I mean, you have like this early scene where Edward is on the train and you have people making
fun of him like, essentially, to his face and you feel really bad for him, but I never felt

(15:23):
bad for Oswald at all at any point because of just the way he acts, the way he behaves.
You can tell that this is a character that, you know, despite his disfigurement, he doesn't
see that he's, you know, he interacts with the world.
He sees kind of the beauty in the world.
He sees the positivity.
He's always, you know, witty.
I think a lot of the humor kind of come from his character as well too, but I like the way
they sort of contrasted those two characters.
But you know, it's also funny is I feel like a lot of the scenes wherein Edward is feeling

(15:48):
anxious about where he is socially.
It's left really ambiguous as to whether people are really making fun of him or not.
Like I think the scene with the train, you know, like we see people laughing at him or like
they're laughing and maybe they're looking at him, but it's never like it's not a scene
that I think would have been in a movie 10 or 20 years ago where, you know, they come up
to him and they bully him, right?

(16:08):
Or there's a scene really early on when he's in the stairway.
And one of the guys says like, oh god, like something.
And you think that they're talking about him, but then you realize, oh no, like they drop
something or something.
I can't remember it, but like it's a completely opposite reaction.
And I think that does a really good job of both showing the sort of ambiguity as to whether

(16:29):
like the constant stress that this character is under of like people looking at me or they
laughing at me or they, you know, doing something else.
But also sort of like externalizing this hatred that he has for himself, because you know,
like we're reading into every single interaction that he has with the other characters.
And I thought that was really cool.
You know, we're talking about the characters.

(16:49):
I feel like I just want to bring this up to him.
I'm curious to see what your guys is taking on this.
The character of Ingrid, the neighbor, I could not stand her.
And I all power to the actress that played her.
I just, I hated this character, honestly.
And the scene that really solidified that for me was when she was having sex with Edward.
I'm forgetting what his new name was.
Can you guys remind me that guy?
Guy, right?

(17:10):
Sorry.
It was the last more at more at the.
More at the.
There's a scene when she and guy are having sex and she asked him to put on the mask.
And then this and I'm like, oh, so you're fetishizing this then basically like that scene
just made me like, I was like, I can't stand this character.
And then she immediately makes fun of him for it.
She says you look, you look ridiculous.
Yeah.
Just straight up says like, oh, this is ridiculous.

(17:32):
What are we doing?
I think the scene that really bothered me was early on when Edward's talking to her about
the characters.
And he says like, oh, well, did you know in Edward?
And she says something along the lines of like, no, this is my story to tell.
And I think that says a lot about her character.
The whole play, the whole essential post-insighting incident after he gets the reconstructive

(17:56):
surgery is this play.
And the whole play really is like you said like a fetishization.
It's like a tragedy point.
It's like making people feel bad and also like post-arizing her as this like other worldly
woman who like, our eyes so kind that I could fall in love with a man with disfigurements.

(18:16):
And I think she really positions herself as someone who is more understanding than everybody
else.
And they even use the phrase like beauty in the beast a lot.
And I think that that's something that's like really awful to use in that situation.
And she says it over and over again.
And it sort of becomes like the reoccurring idea of the play.

(18:38):
And I really think that she views the play and the story of the play as her story and
not Edward's story.
It's also funny because the actress, Renate de Reinsvets, she was in the worst person in
the world in the movie.
So I don't know.
And she kind of was the worst person in the world in this movie.
But yeah, I was really interested in Edward and Oswald's dynamic going into the play and

(19:05):
how that sort of developed and seeing in real time how much Edward comes to present Oswald
for his like affable personality.
And that fight scene towards the end is like really, I thought probably one of the more
moving parts of the movie because you really see him try to take out his own anger on what
he sees as like an externalized version of himself.

(19:28):
It was really shocking when the lights fell down on him by the way.
I thought the movie was done there.
Yeah, and then that hard smash cut to him in like the funny cast was really funny.
And you know, we're talking a lot about the really serious parts about this movie, but I
think it's also a really funny movie.
It is.
And again, in a really dark way like the reveal that the guy talking about like, oh, you know,

(19:52):
like I graduated from Juilliard and this is my first paid kid and you're like, oh, like,
what are they filming?
And then you find out they're filming an informational video on how to treat your co-workers
with disfigurements nicely.
And I thought that was really interesting.
I think, you know, in terms of cinema, we don't like, it's interesting because we're talking

(20:14):
about casting and a typical physiology, I think is the term the casting director uses.
And like, yeah, like we still are at a point in history where maybe our beauty standards
are changing a little bit, but we still have a very strict and rigid definition of who
can be on screen.
And if not, and if someone who doesn't have the physical attributes that we typically

(20:38):
associate with people are on screen, what kind of roles they can play.
I thought that this movie was really brave just for even willing to approach that because
I can't think of too many other movies that are really willing to do that without making
a spectacle out of it.
Like, you know, I think of that share movie where her son has the physical...

(20:58):
I don't know, I know, I know.
You're talking about that.
Yeah, yeah.
And like that one is like, oh, like, oh, of course only the blind girl could fall in love
with him.
Or, you know, we think about the elephant man and just like, how, you know, stuck we are
in how we view people or even, you know, we're...
I was just talking about Smile and, you know, we talk about all these horror movies where,

(21:20):
okay, we want to scare people, we want to make a monster, how do we design the monster?
We make them look atypical.
We give them long limbs, we give them, you know, a disfigured face.
Freddie Krueger is supposed to be scary because he has burn scars.
He's like very, like, things that I can imagine, I can imagine if you had burn scars or if
you had a physical disability, what that would be like to see yourself represented as monstrous

(21:44):
or other, in cinema.
And so I think that's what I really appreciate about this movie was that it was willing to
go to those places and like, sort of bring up a mirror to your face and say like, yeah,
like, as audiences, like, we do sort of enjoy viewing tragedy and spectacle.
But what does that mean for the people in those movies?
Yeah, that's a very good point.

(22:05):
I mean, like, I hadn't even thought about how that relates to a horror film.
So...
I will also say, you know, I did not know too much about that condition, so no thing with
this.
So, neurofibre to most of the movie.
Yeah, I'm glad you pronounced it because I didn't know that.
I think that's how it's pronounced it.
It's not, I'm so sorry, but I didn't know too much about that condition.
And, you know, with this movie, I did some more research into it and I think any movie

(22:25):
that can raise condition on stuff or raise awareness of stuff like that and kind of
get you to go investigate.
I think that's also important too.
Well, yeah, it's also interesting because I think there's a lot of scenes where people
sort of ask questions and say things in the movie that we're supposed to kind of clock
as maybe being in port taste or something, but a lot of them are questions that, like,
I know I had going through it.

(22:47):
Like the scene where they're at the bar and the guy is talking about, like, so did they
just write the movie and expect to find a guy that looked the way that they described
and, like, you know, how did that work and good thing that he can act?
And he's saying all these questions, but it almost feels like the screenwriter is, like,
kind of, like, poking fun at the audience being like, you thought of this.
Like, these are questions that you probably had about the movie itself.

(23:10):
And I really enjoyed the, like, the peeling back of the layers of, like, the play in the
movie, which is also about the movie and the movie is the play.
And it's very interconnected.
And I thought that was really clever.
And there's another point that I kind of want to bring up, thinking a little bit
about Under the Skin and Adam Pearson's character and that, I don't know if you guys have seen
the movie.

(23:31):
I'm not going to spoil too much about it or, like, delve too deep into it, but the contrast
in his character in Under the Skin and in a different man is, you know, a pretty big
difference.
And I mean, under the skin, his character was very innocent and to see that in contrast

(23:53):
with a different man, I think it's really important to kind of just have different views.
Just to not, like, rely on stereotypes for how people with, like, disfigurements should
be portrayed.
So I thought that seeing an entirely different personality from that in a different man,

(24:15):
like, seeing that from Adam Pearson's character was really valuable too.
Yeah, like, I really enjoyed how, like, he said, complex a lot of the characters were, like,
Oswald, you know, is this, like, really affable, like, really likeable guy, but, like, I think
he misses out, like, like, not being able to read that, like, Edward is, like, very, like,
resentful of him.

(24:35):
Like, I think that that is, like, a character flaw.
And I'm glad that they included it or just Edward's character in general, I think is really,
you know, I love it when we have movies that have three-dimensional views of people and
doesn't just, you know, revert them to just victims or just, you know, people to feel bad for.
And so when you see Edward's progression throughout the movie, you learn so much about him

(25:01):
and how he's gone about life through, like, the little really tiny interactions he has with
people and the little stairs that Sebastian Stan gives.
So I really appreciated that.
And even thinking about Ingrid's character, I mean, like, from one perspective, she's, like,
she comes off as this very, like, you know, strong and powerful woman, but then on the other

(25:23):
end, she's just kind of a terrible person.
And I feel like having both sides of that is also kind of adds to the complexity too.
Yeah.
I think for me, Ingrid kind of represents the idea of exploitation.
I think it's so exploitative.
And everything from her, like, you know, trying to do the right thing with this play, but
this play in the first place just, I don't know.

(25:43):
Everything about her just rubs me the wrong way.
Yeah.
I don't know.
She does that thing where she's like, well, you know, we want to be sure that we're, you
know, not making him into a victim and we're being very ethical about this.
But at its core, the theater production is very unethical.
She's naming a character after somebody who she presumes has killed themselves, somebody

(26:06):
who she knew who actually had this, you know, physical deformity.
Like, it's, I think she's really going about it in a way that's so indicative of her character
and how she views this opportunity as exactly that in opportunity, not as something to learn
about or something to like say.
Like, I just think it's so representative of how she views the world.

(26:28):
And I thought that was a really interesting character art for her to have.
And especially when she brings in Hawswald.
And that scene where, you know, she essentially has to break to Edward that Edward doesn't
have the part in that they're going to reshape his part.
And again, like talking about discussions that are about other things that I loved that
scene where Edward's talking about, well, you know, if he changes his face, he's not a different

(26:52):
person.
He's still the same person.
I thought that was probably my, one of my favorite scenes just in seeing him come to
that realization without like that cognitive dissonance of like, no, like, I'm still that
person and he is still that person changing the face doesn't matter.
Yeah, he just wanted to get rid of that person.
Yeah, realizing that.
It's really a...

(27:12):
It's a tragic movie, you know, it's...
It is.
It's pretty funny as it is.
It really, I think, is a tragedy more than anything.
And I just, the ending when you find out, you know, where Hawswald and Ingrid have been,
and you just see the look on his face when he realizes that like everything he's done

(27:33):
has been completely in vain.
It reminds me a lot of like the Twilight Zone of that like, cruel irony, that cruel sort
of twist at the end that makes the character realize like, oh, actually, am I the bad guy?
That's what it reminded me a lot of.
And I got a good sort of revisit from that, so yeah.
That's really cool.

(27:53):
I never thought of that, but you're right.
It is kind of like an episode of the Twilight Zone.
That's an interesting way of looking at it.
Well, there's even the episode, the one where the lady gets her facial reconstructive
surgery.
I was the beholder.
And then it turns out that she wants to look like she has a big face because everyone in
that universe has big faces.
And actually if you don't have a pig nose, you're ugly.

(28:15):
And so that's sort of where it reminded me of.
But I do think it's interesting that we are having the sort of two back-to-back movies about
people changing their physical appearances because of their own insecurities and how that
sort of sends them on a spy role.
Just makes you want to like look at like, what's going on guys?
Like, what's going on in the surface?
Why are we making movies about this all of a sudden?

(28:37):
Yeah.
One more thing I want to say about Ingrid Tukes, I just remembered this scene too.
Edward gives her a typewriter because she tells him that she is a playwright.
So very nice gesture.
And she just gives it away later in the movie.
I thought she just didn't care at all about that gift, which to me, she didn't care about
Edward in the first place.
Like, that's like going back to I said, like, this idea of exploitation.

(29:00):
Like I just really don't think she ever truly cared about Edward because the typewriter
didn't mean anything to her.
At the end, it's like Oswald's the one that's like, here, you can take it.
So if you had to tell somebody who's maybe on the fence going to see a different man, would

(29:25):
you recommend it?
Would you not?
What would you guys say?
I would recommend it.
I thought it was, you know, a perfect balance of tragedy and comedy.
Just so much duality within the film that makes it complex and interesting to watch.
So I would definitely recommend it.
Yeah, me too.

(29:45):
Absolutely.
Go see it.
I think it's a great movie.
Go see it at the Beverly.
Just for the sheer fact alone, that it's just really top-notch filmmaking.
Like everything on a technical aspect.
And it's a great story too.
And performances and, yeah, it's a great movie.
Go watch it.
I'd recommend it outside of just the technical quality of the film because I think it's a
movie a lot of people are going to be talking about.
And you don't want to be left on my conversation, do you?

(30:07):
I think this movie is going to probably rack up a few knobs, come award season, so keep
an eye out for it.
And yeah, go see it at the Beverly.
Well, that wraps it up for this week's film department.
If you enjoyed today's class, you can feel free to like, subscribe and share wherever you

(30:30):
was to your fine podcasts.
If you're interested in reading our full link reviews, you can check them out at the substack
at the film department.
And thank you to the Beverly.
Be sure to check out their website for more information on upilling films, including dates
and times for a different man.
Thank you guys so much.
And we'll see you next time.
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(30:53):
collaborations, live happening, cultural portals and a zest for independent spirits to downtown
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(31:13):
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♪ ♪