Starring: Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve and Adam Pearson
Distributor: Kismet Unit Trust
Runtime: 112 mins. Reviewed in Oct 2024
Reviewer: Peter W Sheehan
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This American psychological thriller is about a man who has had a terrible disease. He is cured, and becomes fixated on the person who has been chosen to depict his life in a theatre play.
Edward (Stan) is a mild-mannered New Yorker who suffers from the genetic disorder of neurofibromatosis. The film shows him undergoing an experimental treatment that cures the condition which has facially disfigured him. Oswald (Pearson) comes forward to act the part of Edward in a stage production based on Edward’s life, and Oswald in reality is disfigured by the same disease. The film is a confronting exploration of disability. Stan won the Silver Bear for best leading performance in his role as Edward at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival.
The film itself is darkly satirical about what constitutes beauty. In the movie, Edward had a craniofacial condition, that turns people away from him in disgust. Reinsve plays Ingrid, an aspiring playwright, who is his beautiful next-door neighbour, and who expressed kindness to him when he was afflicted. She writes a play about Edward. Oswald has the actual condition Edward had before his cure, and he enthusiastically plays Edward on stage in Ingrid’s play. Edward is threatened by seeing Oswald play him as he once was, but not as he now is.
Edward has responded to a radical medical procedure, and with his body-growths gone, is now perceived by people around him as a handsome man. But when Oswald takes the part of Edward on stage, his real-life facial deformities shape the impact of the play Ingrid has written. The film raises a wide number of challenging questions: What constitutes real beauty, and how much is the pursuit of beauty a search for different conceptions of normality? A reconstructed Edward finds himself suddenly an object of desire. Is Edward going to be happy as a handsome man? And who is Ingrid really attracted to: someone who no longer has the disease, Edward with the condition, or the man who is playing Edward in the play she has written? The movie is a kaleidoscope of appearances in a film that boldly addresses the issue of whether it is better to be naturally liked for what we are, or admired by others for what we are not.
The film pointedly addresses the question of how we learn to live with different representations of normality. It raises multiple thoughts and reflections about beauty, ugliness, attraction, and disgust, and it targets forms of social conditioning that are based on false appearances. This is a strikingly original film about disability that is creatively directed and acted. It deals provocatively with human attributes in terms of how we view them. The darkness of its imagery will confront, but the film engenders stimulating thoughts on how we relate to ‘differences’ that we perceive.
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