You Can Finally Watch 2024's Boldest Sci-Fi Parable — And One Of The Best Movies Of the Year
Beauty is skin-deep.
In 1960, The Twilight Zone episode “Eye of the Beholder” aired on CBS. It followed a woman undergoing a last-ditch operation to fix a disfigurement; if it failed, she’d be condemned to a life of exile with more of “her kind.” The entire episode leads up to the removal of her bandages. When it happens, the doctor drops his tools in disgust, saying, “No change! No change at all,” but when we finally see the woman’s face, she’s beautiful.
As it turns out, the doctor and everyone else in this world look like pig-faced aliens, meaning what we consider beautiful is ugly to them. As host Rod Serling says at the end, “The old saying happens to be true. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In this year or a hundred years hence.”
It hasn’t been a century yet, but 44 years later, an innovative and captivating movie streaming on Max sends the same message through a grounded, cynical story with a slick sci-fi twist.
A Different Man is the story of Edward Lemuel (Sebastian Stan), a man eking out a humble life as an actor in New York City. However, his career is limited by his facial disfiguration, restricting him to roles in corporate training videos about disabilities. And when pretty playwright Ingrid (Renate Reinsve) moves in next door, Edward is merely reminded of his problem.
But things start to look up when he’s asked to be a test subject for an experimental treatment that makes his facial flaws literally fall off. He uses his new look to start fresh and reinvents himself as Guy Moratz, a real estate agent. He reconnects with Ingrid, but then meets Oswald (Adam Pearson), a man with his own facial flaws who’s charming, extroverted, and funny. Edward’s internal conflict over his appearance — and his jealousy toward Oswald — leads to a climax that feels more like a psychological thriller than a sci-fi parable.
The final message of A Different Man isn’t exactly a feel-good one, as Edward’s takeaway from his procedure is that even looking like Sebastian Stan won’t save him from the uncomfortable truth that he’s just an unpleasant person. Oswald’s magnetism and charm prove that Edward’s problem isn’t his appearance, but his personality.
Oswald is everything Edward isn’t.
But that harsh moral can be reframed as a comforting fact: people see you the way you see yourself. Edward believed himself to be less than human, so that’s how everyone else saw him, even after he was cured. Oswald just sees himself as a normal guy who likes karaoke and dressing up as Austin Powers, so that’s how you’ll see him, too.
The Twilight Zone’s message was true in 1960, it’s true in 2025, and as Rod Serling said, it will be true in a hundred years. No sci-fi story will ever change that, but it’s good to get a reminder now and then.
