I kind of enjoyed this movie… until I didn’t. I kind of cynically understood whatit was saying… until I didn’t. I don’t think a movie could self-destruct so gloriously in its final act… until it did.

A Different Man is movie starring handsome and beautiful Hollywood actors who are going to teach us a lesson about being ugly. Sebastian Stan plays a man with some kind of facial deformity that seems casually common in this world. But he wants to ACT so he takes an experimental drug that sheds his hideous deformity, leaving behind pretty boy Stan… who wants an acting role as a hideously deformed man. Oh. The irony.

Yeah, not sure how I feel about this weird lecture of a movie. OK sure… all ugly people have a Sebastian Stan hiding in them. But – tsk tsk tsk – beware what you wish for because you might become Sebastian Stan and realize you still aren’t happy. Because another hideous man with more charisma might come along and then sucks to be Sebastian Stan!

So I get where the movie is going and acknowledge the above paragraph is far more cynical than the movie deserves. Because I rather enjoyed the first two acts, even as my eyes started to roll at whatever high-minded, easy for them to say messages they were hitting me with. It was good, well directed and well directed almost despite itself.

But the third act was a mish-mash of an unfocused disaster. I have no idea where it was going or what it thought it was saying as it dragged its metaphors along. I kept glancing at the clock trying to figure out what more they had to say about their over-broad themes… and realizing there was still twenty minutes to go. I hated this unmoored final act and its random storylines that felt like they were veering off message.

So, yeah, because I enjoyed (perhaps a little cynically) the first two acts, I’ll still give the movie a decent score. But screw that miserable final act. I was so bored and confused about its direction. And looking forward to the day when Sebastian Stan looks in the mirror and realizes his wealth and good looks won’t make him happy. Oh. The irony.

Score: 77