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Pearson... brings a burst of much-needed vitality to this droll but overly thought-through film. He’s a living, breathing complication to the considerations of representation and authorship that Schimberg explores. But he’s also a full-fledged character shouldering his way into a work that can otherwise feel claustrophobic in its concerns, like listening to someone having an argument with themself.

Every scene is thoughtfully constructed and individually compelling – and thanks to the strength of its parts, we can imagine the sum potential... [Schimberg has] gotten so much right that one more pass at the script could have pushed him to where he wants to be. But without a rock-solid core, A Different Man eventually succumbs to an insurmountable crisis of identity.

There’s some John Carpenter in [A Different Man], and some Woody Allen, and some John Cassavetes, and a healthy dose of Charlie Kaufman-style surreality. The result is shrewd, and fantastic, and something all its own.

It’s an absorbing ride, and Schimberg works with confidence and brio. On top of that his cast is so darned good, you want the story to go on and on — how about a trilogy, with everyone returning for sequels based on Oswald and Ingrid?

A Different Man is a major work—even as it shapeshifts from Cronenberg to Kaurismäki, developing into new territory at every turn, Schimberg never loses sight of his central questions: What makes us who we are?

Assured, absurd, and totally unique... His screenplay is deliciously layered, structured around winking callbacks but clever enough to never show its cards or where it’s going. Schimberg is utterly confident in his story, and it’s his tact and taste that keep this story from turning into, say, Shallow Hal.

The avoidance of such patterned cliches allows for A Different Man to feel entirely unpredictable. But the film, like its main character, also avoids an in-depth exploration of emotional interiority.

Even with the deliberate air of staginess and tricksiness that permeates the self-consciously meta A Different Man, there is also a real mischief in the filmmaking... Schimberg’s deliciously twisted play on duality and morality and polarity never answers whether it’s better to be despised for what you are, than admired for what you’re not. But it does impishly insist we count our blessings if we’ve never had to find out.

There’s a lot going on in Schimberg’s film and sometimes the ideas, like Edward and Oswald, feel as though they’re in a tussle for the limelight, especially with the layering in of a play within the film. But the filmmaker is also bracing in his approach to the various elements of this subject – not least the idea that all humans are internally flawed whatever they may look like.

Eschewing the polemical, the film’s self-reflexive dismantling of victimhood and villainy tropes functions like a puzzle in which the ways in which the viewer responds to the central character provide the final piece.

[A Different Man] is arresting and challenging with an exhilarating performance from Adam Pearson... The tangled oddity of the story makes as many demands on an audience’s attention and credulity as anything else on screen – although the way Schimberg’s film refuses the horror tropes that another might embrace is interesting.

Uniquely uncomfortable, uncomfortably unique... [A Different Man] is a dark, hilarious, and deeply unsettling portrait of a disfigured man that’s also an unflinching mirror of a looks-focused industry.