1 of 5 | Sebastian Stan stars in “A Different Man.” Photo courtesy of Sundance Institute
PARK CITY, Utah, Jan. 22 (UPI) — A Different Man, which premiered Sunday at the Sundance Film Festival, has good intentions and a lot of big ideas. Unfortunately, the film can’t juggle all of them and winds up frustrating instead.
Edward (Sebastian Stan) has a facial deformity that requires frequent surgeries to manage growths obstructing hearing and vision. Edward’s new neighbor, Ingrid (Renate Reinsve), comes over to get to know him but Edward fears she can’t get beyond his appearance.
When Edward’s doctor offers him the chance to participate in an experimental treatment, he jumps at the chance. The treatment causes his growths to literally peel from his face, leaving Stan’s natural face underneath.
Edward creates an entirely new identity for himself as Guy, a real estate agent. That’s the sort of premise that can be a logline for a movie. It certainly was similar to the festival description of the film.
Unfortunately, the film can’t seem to focus its plot about Guy’s journey and its statements about how society views people with different conditions. Writer/director Aaron Schimberg drops major plots as soon as he’s done with them, but the series of events doesn’t add up to much.
When Guy moves into a new apartment, he tells the doctors for the treatment that Edward died by suicide. This gets the medical team out of the movie at this point, but there should have been an organic way to integrate the medical story into the rest of the film.
But already at this point, A Different Man has had bizarre tonal shifts. The peeling of Edward’s face takes more than one scene and it is as graphic as a David Cronenberg movie.
That’s a sharp contrast to the tone thus far, which was heightened but not totally surreal. It was like our world but just a little off.
There’d been a bit of cringe comedy to that point, with random strangers waving to Edward. The police wake Edward up in the middle of the night knocking on the wrong door.
An ice cream truck tries to pass a parked ambulance but why is an ice cream truck out in the middle of the night? Just being illogical isn’t itself funny.
Plus, Edward acted in an HR video for businesses to teach their employees to treat colleagues with facial disfigurement sensitively. That video was comical for its misguidedness in “othering” the people with facial conditions in the guise of helping them.
But, it gets far more obscure. At first, Guy still struggles to adjust to his new face. He still wobbles like Edward, not used to having a face proportional to his body.
That would be interesting to explore but the film shifts focus again when Guy discovers that Ingrid has written a play about Edward. So he auditions for it.
A man acting in a play about his own life could be very derivative of Charlie Kaufman, but in that regard, Schimberg does have his own take.
Guy is performing Ingrid’s impression of him, never revealing that he used to be Edward. Guy also saved a mask of his Edward face which he wears for the play. The lab made masks of his original face at the beginning, and his potential new one as part of the treatment.
Ingrid seems to fetishize Edward. This leads to a bizarre love scene, but could still be a powerful story if it followed through. If Guy found out Ingrid actually liked Edward now that it’s too late, that would be a movie.
But, A Different Man shifts focus again when actor Oswald (Adam Pearson) visits the show because he heard about auditions for actors with facial disfigurements. Ingrid decides it would be better to have someone with an actual facial disfigurement play Edward.
Ironically, A Different Man itself put prosthetics on Stan to play Edward. However, the film gives Pearson a major role. That, plus a willingness to explore how the world sees people with facial disfigurement, are noble endeavors.
However, the only way the film addresses those issues is by allowing a lot of random characters to rant about how society views people. It is poignant that Oswald is so gregarious he wins everyone over, while Guy sees what Edward’s life might have been like had he had Oswald’s confidence.
But, there was nothing wrong with the way Edward was either. He has every right to be introverted, and he was still friendly to neighbors and strangers.
The story goes further and further off the rails with several more plot twists. Guy is confused about his new identity and his old feelings, but he just flails around trying to find things to do and ways to connect with people.
At one point Guy literally flails around at another character.
Movies with wildly different tones and themes can work, as evidenced by the films of Charlie Kaufman, Quentin Tarnatino, Daniels and others. A Different Man goes for it but falls apart long before it’s finished switching things up.
A24 will release A Different Man.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
NEW YORK (OSV News) – Cartoon characters can devolve into dullards over time. But some are more enduringly appealing than others, as the adventure “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants” (Paramount) proves.
Yellow, absorbent and porous on the outside, unflaggingly upbeat SpongeBob (voice of Tom Kenny) is childlike and anxious to please within. He also displays the kind of eagerness for grown-up experiences that is often found in real-life youngsters but that gets him into trouble in this fourth big-screen outing for his character.
Initially, his yearning for maturity takes a relatively harmless form. Having learned that he is now exactly 36 clams tall, the requisite height to ride the immense roller coaster at Captain Booty Beard’s Fun Park, he determines to do so.
Predictably, perhaps, he finds the ride too scary for him. This prompts Mr. Krabs (voice of Clancy Brown), the owner of the Krusty Krab — the fast-food restaurant where SpongeBob works as a cook — to inform his chef that he is still an immature bubble-blowing boy who needs to be tested as a swashbuckling adventurer.
The opportunity for such a trial soon arises with the appearance of the ghostly green Flying Dutchman (voice of Mark Hamill), a pirate whose elaborately spooky lair, the Underworld, is adjacent to SpongeBob’s friendly neighborhood, Bikini Bottom. Subject to a curse, the Dutchman longs to lift it and return to human status.
To do so, he needs to find someone both innocent and gullible to whom he can transfer the spell. SpongeBob, of course, fits the bill.
So the buccaneer lures SpongeBob, accompanied by his naive starfish pal Patrick (voice of Bill Fagerbakke), into a series of challenges designed to prove that the lad has what it takes. Mr. Krabs, the restaurateur’s ill-tempered other employee, Squidward (voice of Rodger Bumpass), and SpongeBob’s pet snail, Gary, all follow in pursuit.
Along the way, SpongeBob and Patrick’s ingenuity and love of carefree play usually succeed in thwarting the Dutchman’s plans.
As with most episodes of the TV series, which premiered on Nickelodeon in 1999, there are sight gags intended either for adults or savvy older children. This time out, though, director Derek Drymon and screenwriters Pam Brady and Matt Lieberman produce mostly misfires.
These include an elaborate gag about Davy Jones’ legendary locker — which, after much buildup, turns out to be an ordinary gym locker. Additionally, in moments of high stress, SpongeBob expels what he calls “my lucky brick.” As euphemistic poop gags go, it’s more peculiar than naughty.
True to form, SpongeBob emerges from his latest escapades smarter, wiser, pleased with his newly acquired skills and with increased loyalty to his friends. So, although the script’s humor may often fall short, the franchise’s beguiling charm remains.
The film contains characters in cartoonish peril and occasional scatological humor. The OSV News classification is A-I – general patronage. The Motion Picture Association rating is PG — parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.
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Too good to be true? Yep, that’s just what Millie’s new job as a housemaid is—and everyone in the audience knows it. What they might not expect, though, is the amount of nudity, profanity and blood The Housemaid comes with. And this content can’t be scrubbed away.
Avatar: Fire and Ash, 2025.
Directed by James Cameron.
Starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Oona Chaplin, Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, Brendan Cowell, Jemaine Clement, Giovanni Ribisi, David Thewlis, Britain Dalton, Jack Champion, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, Jamie Flatters, Bailey Bass, Filip Geljo, Duane Evans Jr., Matt Gerald, Dileep Rao, Daniel Lough, Kevin Dorman, Keston John, Alicia Vela-Bailey, and Johnny Alexander.
SYNOPSIS:
Jake and Neytiri’s family grapples with grief after Neteyam’s death, encountering a new, aggressive Na’vi tribe, the Ash People, who are led by the fiery Varang, as the conflict on Pandora escalates and a new moral focus emerges.
At one point during one of the seemingly endless circular encounters in Avatar: Fire and Ash, (especially if director James Cameron sticks to his plans of making five films in this franchise) former soldier turned blue family man (or family Na’vi?) and protector Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) tells his still-in-pursuit-commander-nemesis-transferred-to-a-Na’vi-body Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) that the world of Pandora runs deeper than he or anyone imagines, and to open his eyes. It’s part of a plot point in which Jake encourages the villainous Quaritch to change his ways.
More fascinatingly, it comes across as a plea of trust from James Cameron (once again writing the screenplay alongside Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver) that there is still much untapped lore and stories to tell in this world. If this repetitive The Way of Water retread is anything to go by, more isn’t justified. Even taken as a spectacle, the unmatched and undeniably stunning visuals (not to mention the most expressive motion capture ever put to screen, movie or video game), that aspect is less impactful, being only two years removed from the last installment rather than a decade, which is not to be confused with less impressive. Fortunately for the film and its gargantuan 3+ hour running time, James Cameron still has enough razzle-dazzle to scoot by here on unparalleled marvel alone, even if the narrative and character expansions are bare-bones.
That’s also what makes it disappointing that this third entry, while introducing a new group dubbed the Ash People led by the strikingly conceptualized Varang (Oona Chaplin) – no one creates scenery-chewing, magnetic, and badass-looking villains quite like James Cameron – and their plight with feeling left behind, rebelling against Pandora religion, Avatar: Fire and Ash is stuck in a cycle of Jake endangering his family (and, by extension, everyone around them) with Quaritch hunting him down for vengeance but this time more fixated on his human son living among them, Spider (Jack Champion) who undergoes a physical transformation that makes him a valuable experiment and, for better or worse, the most important living being in this world. Even the corrupt and greedy marine biologists are back hunting the same godlike sea creatures, leading to what essentially feels like a restaging, if slightly different, riff on the climactic action beat that culminated in last time around.
Worse, whereas The Way of Water had a tighter, more graceful flow from storytelling to spectacle, with sequences extended and drawn out in rapturously entertaining ways, the pacing here is clunkier and frustrating, as every time these characters collide and fight, the story resets and doesn’t necessarily progress. For as much exciting action as there is here, the film also frustratingly starts and stops too much. The last thing I ever expected to type about Avatar: Fire and Ash is that, for all the entrancing technical wizardry on display, fantastical world immersion, and imaginative character designs (complete with occasional macho and corny dialogue that fits, namely since the presentation is in a high frame rate consistently playing like the world’s most expensive gaming cut scene), is often dull.
Yes, everything here, from a special-effects standpoint, is painstakingly crafted, with compelling characters that James Cameron clearly loves (something that shows and allows us to take the story seriously). Staggeringly epic action sequences are worth singling out as in a tier of its own (it’s also a modern movie free from the generally garish and washed-out look of others in this generation), but it’s all in service of a film that is not aware of its strengths, but instead committed to not going anywhere. There are a couple of important details here that one could tell someone before they watch the inevitable Avatar 4, and they will be caught up without needing to watch this. If Avatar: The Way of Water was filler (something I wholeheartedly disagree with), then Avatar: Fire and Ash is nothing. And that’s something that hurts to say.
Without spoiling too much, the single best scene in the entire film has nothing to do with epic-scale warring, but a smoldering courting from Quaritch for Varang and her army of Ash People to join forces with his group. In a film that’s over three hours, it would also have been welcome to focus more on the Ash People, their past, and their current inner workings alongside their perception of Pandora. It’s not a shock that James Cameron can invest viewers into a villain without doing so, but the alternative of watching Jake grapple with militarizing the Na’vi and insisting everyone learn how to use “sky people” firearms while coming to terms with whether or not he can actually protect his family isn’t as engaging; the latter half comes across as déjà vu.
The presence of Spider amplifies the target on everyone’s backs, with Jake convinced the boy needs to return to his world. His significant other Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), with rage building inside her stemming from the family losing a child in the climax of the previous film, encourages a more aggressive approach and is ready to kill Spider if him being a part of the family threatens their remaining children (with one of them once again a 14-year-old motion captured by Sigourney Weaver, which is not as effective a voice performance this time as there are scenes of loud agony and pain where she sounds her age). The children also get to continue their plot arcs, with similarly slim narrative progression.
Not without glimpses of movie-magic charm and emotional moments would one dare say James Cameron is losing his touch. However, Avatar: Fire and Ash is all the proof anyone needs to question whether five of these are required, as it’s beginning to look more and more as if the world and characters aren’t as rich as the filmmaker believes they are. It’s another action-packed technical marvel with sincere, endearing characters, but the cycling nature of those elements is starting to wear thin and yield diminishing returns.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
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