For the first time, the From Below is showing a brand new movie fresh from theatres! A Different Man had an extremely limited one week run in PDX, so we figure most people haven't seen it yet. It's certainly my favorite movie from 2024, to give it that endorsement. A Different Man is Director Aaron Schimberg's follow up to his breakout Chained for Life, both of which delve into questions of identity and disability, specifically facial disfigurement. In A Different Man, a man with a facial disfigurement (Sebastian Stan) has an experimental surgery to give him a new, movie star-quality face. Leaving behind his previous identity, things get complicated when he falls in love with a playwright (Renate Reinsve) who writes a drama about his previous self and a mysterious, extremely charming stranger (Adam Pearson) with the same exact same facial disfigurement arrives on the scene. In turns extremely funny, grotesque, and psychologically thrilling, A Different Man delves into the elementary truism of "It's what's on the inside that counts" and pushes that maxim to unexpected, exhilarating places. Combine Elephant Man, Cronenberg, Beau is Afraid, and urbane NYC indie comedies, and that gives you a bit of an idea what to expect. Not to fire any strays, but I do think that A Different Man explores similar concepts as a certain much more seen 2024 film (ahem, The Substance, ahem) in terms of how much one can escape one's own identity and position, and does so many more interesting things with it.