Movie Reviews

A Different Man Might Be Overthinking Things

Published

1 year ago

September 19, 2024

A Different Man Might Be Overthinking Things

Sebastian Stan is very good in this droll, distant drama about being unable to escape yourself, but it’s Adam Pearson who brings the film to life.
Photo: A24

Adam Pearson doesn’t show up until maybe two thirds of the way through A Different Man, and while that’s by design, once he did, I really wished he’d been there from the start. Pearson, whose first acting role was as one of the men the Scarlett Johansson alien picks up in Under the Skin, has neurofibromatosis, the same genetic condition responsible for the facial deformity that the film’s protagonist, Edward (Sebastian Stan), has then is cured of. A Different Man, which was written and directed by Aaron Schimberg, is filled with internal rhymes, from the repeat appearance of the Toni Morrison novel The Bluest Eye to mentions of the dog Edward doesn’t actually own (though he does briefly acquire a cat). Pearson’s character, Oswald, is the most significant of these acts of thematic alliteration — an outgoing foil to the sullen Edward who looks a lot like Edward did before his treatment but who’s comfortable in his skin in a way that Edward has never been. But Pearson, as happy-go-lucky charmer, also 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.

It’s hard to find a criticism of A Different Man that the film doesn’t articulate itself. In particular, there’s the matter of Edward’s passivity, which Edward complains about when he ends up starring in an Off Broadway play that no one else knows was actually inspired by his life (it’s a long story). Edward is awkward, jumpy, prone to going through life as though anticipating a blow that’s yet to come. He looks like Woody Allen, someone says in passing, an observation that may not be visually true — Stan is at that point wearing prosthetics that create the look of someone with facial tumors — but that’s spiritually dead-on. With his high-waisted pants and rounded shoulders, Edward is impossible to pin down in terms of age or relative hipness, as though he grew up untethered to the normal markers of time. Or to other people — Stan plays the character with a tenderness that doesn’t dilute his prickly desperation, which comes out when an attractive aspiring playwright named Ingrid (The Worst Person in the World’s Renate Reinsve) moves into the apartment next door. He yearns with his whole body to be seen as a romantic possibility — but also is so unused to physical contact and so prepared for rejection that he flinches away from her.

It’s hard to imagine how someone who tries so hard to make himself invisible ended up wanting to be an actor, but when Edward auditions for roles he inevitably doesn’t get, we see that he’s good. The one part he does get is in a corporate anti-discrimination video that serenely assures its viewers that strong reactions to atypical faces is natural, just a fight-or-flight reaction from their reptile brains. A Different Man, which was shot in 16-mm film that gives an extra lived-in texture to its world of beat-up New York apartments and cramped Off Broadway venues, has a keen sense of the absurd that leads to scenes in which Edward watches from his apartment as a jingle-blasting ice-cream truck tries to navigate around the ambulance taking away a neighbor’s body. Schimberg, whose last feature was a riff on the 1952 exploitation film Chained for Life that also starred Pearson, has a keen interest in what goes unsaid when it comes to someone who’s going through life with an appearance that sets them apart, and how that desire to be careful and correct can create its own sense of isolation. Edward may not face grade-school cruelty anymore, but being treated with kid gloves by people who won’t actually be upfront about what’s on their mind is its own kind of torment.

It’s torment that leads Edward to undergo an experimental procedure with miraculous results that leave him looking, well, like a movie star. Stan’s gotten a lot of praise for this role, though what makes his work so compelling is his willingness to do very little in his scenes, both in and out of the prosthetics — to withdraw into Edward’s own paralyzed self-consciousness. For someone who frets about connecting with others, Edward isn’t always present himself, prone to retreating into his own head as the sound fades around him, and struggling to connect with the version of himself Ingrid writes for the stage when she believes Edward died, not realizing that the handsome actor she’s chosen for the role is actually her former neighbor. That’s one of the reasons Pearson, when he bursts onscreen as a charismatic Englishman who’d been told about the play by a casting agent, feels like such a relief. Oswald provides an easy solution to the ironic issues about authenticity that Edward finds himself facing when he starts wearing a mask to re-create his past appearance.

But, chatty and confident and funny, Oswald is also a much-needed counterpoint to Edward, who, even when given the opportunity to start over with a new face and name, can’t escape his own insecurities, a character constantly and exasperatingly stuck in one place. The slipperiness and span of time that A Different Man covers make it feel like a junior version of Synecdoche, New York, Charlie Kaufman’s drama about a theater director making his inward-burrowing dream project. But Schimberg’s film is more distant and less personal, and it’s only really when Pearson shows up that it’s clear how much we needed the fresh air he brings with him.

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Movie Reviews

Movie Review: Jodie Foster shines as a psychoanalyst on the edge in ‘A Private Life’

Published

1 hour ago

January 14, 2026

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Movie Review: Jodie Foster shines as a psychoanalyst on the edge in ‘A Private Life’

Jodie Foster plays a self-assured psychoanalyst whose composure unravels after a patient unexpectedly dies in the genre-bending French film “A Private Life.”

Rebecca Zlotowski’s latest, in theaters Friday, is part noir, part comedy of remarriage, and part Freudian fever dream about past lives.

This is a film that does not abide by rules or play into any easy expectations about what it should be, resulting in big swings, tonal shifts and even a lurking Holocaust through-line. Also, oddly enough considering such grave themes and subjects, it’s all done with a relatively light touch set, in part, by the cheeky needle drop at its opening: the Talking Heads song “Psycho Killer.” Some parts work better than others, but you can’t help but admire the go-for-broke originality and unabashed femininity of it all. And anchoring it all is Foster, using the full force of her star power and impeccable French to make “A Private Life,” unwieldy and complex as it is, go down as easy as a glass of gamay.

Foster’s character, Dr. Lilian Steiner, is an American expat living and working in France. She’s an accomplished, sophisticated woman who believes she has a grasp on people and the world around her, recording and cataloging all her private sessions with clients on meticulously organized CDs. This act in and of itself is a little odd — her son wonders why she doesn’t just use a more modern method, for instance. But it also kind of gets to the heart of why, perhaps, despite her evident intelligence, there’s a cold disconnect between analyst and subject. Is she even listening to them?

Lilian starts to wonder this herself after she receives a call that her client Paula ( Virginie Efira ) has died by suicide. Paula was not someone she believed was capable of this. Instead of looking inward, she goes back to the tapes to begin an amateur investigation to find some other explanation: It must be murder, she concludes. Suspects include Paula’s daughter Valérie (Luàna Bajrami) and husband Simon (Mathieu Amalric).

She also enlists a sidekick in her sleuthing, her ex-husband Gabriel (a delightful Daniel Auteuil ) who is more than happy to go along for the ride, to listen to her conspiracy theories over several bottles of wine, to be a decoy distraction so that she can snoop through Simon’s house, and, ultimately, to just be there for her, no matter how unhinged she’s becoming. You can just see the love and admiration in his attentiveness. He’s not off put by the crazy; it’s just part of what makes her, well, her. Their rekindled relationship, so effortlessly lived in, so mature, so fun, is by far the highlight of “A Private Life.”

It’s a shame that their romance is basically a side show to the more convoluted rest, which involves a hypnotist and a revelation of a past life in which Lilian and Paula were members of the same WWII-era orchestra and lovers torn apart by jealous exes and Nazis. One of those Nazis is Lilian’s son (Vincent Lacoste), which she awkwardly, drunkenly tells him at his birthday dinner to try to explain why they’ve never been that close. She’s also completely disinterested in her grandchild, which might be one “let’s unpack that” too many in this film. In other words, there’s a lot going on in “A Private Life,” which Zlotowski co-wrote with Anne Berest.

This image released by Sony Pictures Classics shows Jodie Foster, left, and Virginie Efira in a scene from “A Private Life.” Credit: AP/Jérôme Prébois

One thing there’s not enough of is Efira. She gets some moments in flashback, but most of them teeter on the “dead wife montage” cliche. It’s not that Zlotowski wasn’t aware of what she had in Efira (case in point, their poignant, tender work together in “Other People’s Children”), but perhaps she was counting on our familiarity to fill in the gaps.

“A Private Life” is ultimately Foster’s show anyway and she seems to relish the tricky assignment. The tone around her might be on the lighter side, but for Lilian, the stakes are grave with the very essence of her self-worth and life’s work on the line. It’s a fascinating portrait of a woman essentially forced to rethink and revise all of the rules she’d lived by, the facts that she made sense of the world with and submit herself to the idea that some things might just be unknowable — even for a know-it-all psychoanalyst.

“A Private Life,” a Sony Pictures Classics release in theaters Friday, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for “language, graphic nudity, brief violence, some sexual content.” Running time: 105 minutes. Three stars out of four.

Movie Reviews

Vaa Vaathiyaar Movie Review: A fond, funky & fun throwback to old-school masala films

Published

13 hours ago

January 14, 2026

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Vaa Vaathiyaar Movie Synopsis: Even as he keeps up an appearance of following in the footsteps MGR in front of his grandfather, a die-hard fan of the legend, Ramu is actually a corrupt cop, who’s helping in a mission to nab activists exposing the government. What happens when an incident triggers the Vaathiyaar in him? Vaa Vaathiyaar Movie Review: In his interviews about the film, director Nalan Kumarasamy repeatedly stressed on the fact that he planned Vaa Vaathiyaar as an attempt at recreating the old-school masala film in his own style. And that’s exactly what he delivers with his film. The simplicity of the MGR film formula meets the new-age-y plot device of Maaveeran in this fond, fun, funky throwback to the masala films of an earlier era. The film does take a while to get going with the beats of the initial set-up coming across as little too familiar. The narrative rhythm, too, is slightly off, with far too many songs popping up at frequent intervals. Though, it helps that Santhosh Narayanan’s songs are short and groovy. And the composer delivers a score that superbly elevates the emotional moments. But once we get into the main conflict, things perk up. An anonymous group of hacker-activists exposes a shootout plot by power broker Periasamy (Sathyaraj) and the chief minister (Nizhalgal Ravi) at a Sterlite-like protest. The government decides to nab them before they can cause further damage to a 142 million euro business deal. How does Ramu – a corrupt cop, who is keeping up a facade of being a do-gooder for the sake of his grandfather (Rajkiran, who has become the default casting choice for such well-meaning boomer roles), a die-hard MGR fan – gets involved in this and where does the OG Vaathiyaar figures in this scheme of things?Vaa Vaathiyaar shows that in this age of hyper-masculine action – and even romantic – films, it’s still possible to make a rousing commercial entertainer with a star without relying on guns and gratuitous bloodshed. The film’s action set-pieces have the hero taking on dozens of henchmen (and cops, too!), but it’s all done in swashbuckling MGR style. And in Karthi, it has an actor who is brave enough to take on a risky role, given the stature in which MGR is held by the Tamil people. Rather than merely mimicking him, which would have ended up as a spoof, the actor wonderfully captures the spirit of the legend’s onscreen image and creates moments that are genuinely heartfelt. Credit should also go to Nalan for finding the right pitch at which the actor should play these portions. While there are quite a few throwbacks to iconic MGR scenes, the filmmaker even succeeds in his modern take on the iconic song, Raajavin Paarvai Raaniyin Pakkam.The film would have been even better with a stronger villain. The film initially builds up Periyasamy to be ruthless and powerful, and with someone of Sathyaraj’s calibre playing this role, we expect more only to be deceived in the end. There’s also some build up to Nivas, a rival cop, who’s keen on nailing Ramu, but this arc, which could have added tension, is left incomplete after a while.That said, Nalan’s bold move to call back to MGR’s real-life hospitalisation and resurgence in the climax leaves the film on an emotional high.

Movie Reviews

Ravi Teja’s Bhartha Mahasayulaku Wignyapthi Movie Review

Published

1 day ago

January 13, 2026

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Ravi Teja’s Bhartha Mahasayulaku Wignyapthi Movie Review

Movie Name : Bhartha Mahasayulaku Wignyapthi

Release Date : Jan 13, 2026
123telugu.com Rating : 2.75/5
Starring : Ravi Teja, Ashika Ranganath, Dimple Hayathi, Sunil, Satya, Vennala Kishore, Tarak Ponnappa, Muralidhar and Others
Director : Kishore Tirumala
Producer : Sudhakar Cherukuri
Music Director : Bheems Cecireleo
Cinematographers : Prasad Murella
Editor : A Sreekar Prasad
Related Links : Trailer

Mass Maharaja Ravi Teja returns to the big screen with Bhartha Mahasayulaku Wignyapthi, which has released today as a Sankranthi special. Ashika Ranganath and Dimple Hayathi play the female leads. Read on to know how the film fares.

Story:

Ram Satyanarayana (Ravi Teja), who manufactures the alcohol brand Anarkalee, travels to Spain after it is rejected by a wine company owned by Manasa Shetty (Ashika Ranganath). The trip leads to a romance, but Ram returns to India to his possessive wife, Balamani (Dimple Hayathi). Problems begin when Manasa arrives in India, leaving Ram Satyanarayana caught between the two women, and the film follows how he navigates the situation and brings it to a resolution.

Plus Points:

Ravi Teja steps away from his usual mass persona and opts for a calm, restrained role laced with style and situational comedy. While this is familiar territory for him, his effortless screen presence and comic timing make the character work once again.

Ashika Ranganath looks appealing and gets a role with a fair emotional arc. Her scenes with Ravi Teja are pleasant and register well. Dimple Hayathi, cast as the possessive wife, does an average job and fits the requirement of the role.

Comedy is largely driven by Satya in the opening portions, and his track works effectively. After his exit, Sunil takes charge and delivers humour in his trademark style. Together, their portions ensure a fairly engaging first half. Vennela Kishore also contributes with his reliable comic timing.

Minus Points:

The biggest drawback is the story itself. The core conflict of a man trapped between his wife and girlfriend has been explored countless times, and this film offers little novelty beyond fresh casting. The narrative, humour, and emotional beats follow a predictable pattern. The second half, in particular, had ample scope to deepen the conflict between Ravi Teja, Ashika, and Dimple Hayathi, but the writing fails to capitalise on it.

Director Kishore Tirumala manages the first half competently, but the film loses momentum after the interval. The drama feels artificial, and the comedy turns ineffective. Predictability becomes a major issue as the film progresses.

While the humour is reasonably engaging in the first half, it falls flat in the latter portions. The second half struggles to generate laughs, and the climax is simplistic with minimal emotional payoff. A stronger blend of comedy and drama could have at least elevated the film to a passable level.

Tarak Ponnappa’s track brings nothing new and feels like a filler in the narrative. The Vammo Vayyo song and the remix of the Karthika Deepam and Pinni serial tracks are aimed at mass audiences but appear suddenly and do not flow well with the story.

Technical Aspects:

Kishore Tirumala attempts to package a routine storyline with humour and emotion, but the execution remains inconsistent. While a few moments click, the overall impact, especially in the second half, is underwhelming.

Prasad Murella’s cinematography is serviceable. Sreekar Prasad’s editing needed to be sharper, as trimming several redundant scenes would have improved the film’s pace. Bheems Ceciroleo’s music is passable, though the background score fails to leave a strong impression. Production values are adequate.

Verdict:

On the whole, Bhartha Mahasayulaku Wignyapthi ends up as a familiar drama with sporadic moments of entertainment. Ravi Teja delivers a composed performance, Ashika Ranganath looks good, and Satya, Sunil, and Vennela Kishore provide some relief. However, the predictable narrative, forced drama, and weak second half significantly dilute the impact. With tempered expectations, the film can be watched for its performances and humour.

123telugu.com Rating: 2.75/5

Reviewed by 123telugu Team