Sebastian Stan is a beautiful man, but he’s never seemed ugly until now. Stan has a peculiar way of making his seemingly perfect face give viewers the willies with his turn in A Different Man. Body horror metastasizes into something entirely new here. This unsettling character piece sees an unrecognizable Stan undergo a reverse Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde scenario, or perhaps the trippiest twist on Beauty and the Beast yet. Playing Edward, an aspiring actor in New York, Stan sports a hefty layer of make-up until his character undergoes breakthrough treatment. Edward participates in a trial that might as well be The Substance for how radically it transforms him in body and mind. He learns that beauty carries more weight as a mindset, rather than as a physical trait.

Edward, when he first appears, has a face that is layered with tumours. Make-up wizardry by Mike Marino (The Irishman) refashions Stan’s visage into a relief map of Edward’s fragile psyche. He’s more Elephant Man than leading man, as his only gig is an instructional video about avoiding ableism in the workplace. His new neighbour, aspiring playwright Ingrid (Worst Person in the World’s Renate Reinsve), recoils upon meeting him. People generally ignore Edward, and it seems that he prefers it that way. Stan has a habit of shrinking Edward into himself as if to deflect attention. Edward’s life consists of manifesting invisibility while navigating a desire to be seen. He’s an enigma of confidence and self-doubts.

However, Ingrid’s gradual interest in her neighbour informs the audience that Edward wasn’t born this way. As a friendship develops between the neighbours, with romantic inklings rumbling on Edward’s side, he yearns for the man he feels he could have been. He conquers his fear of being repulsive by accepting an experimental procedure. Doctors take impressions of his face and give him his likeness in a mask to remember his old self by.

Once the old mask comes off, so to speak, Edward emerges with Stan’s smooth skin and angular jaw for all to see. He carries himself anew. Edward has a fresh stride in his step and “kills off” his former self. Women look at him. Guys at the bar buy him rounds instead of making him the butt of their jokes. Casting directors find ways to work him into their plays instead of finding workarounds to leave him out.

Ironically, though, Edward discovers the role of a lifetime. As time passes, Ingrid creates a play drawn from Edward’s life. It’s a love story that basically steals Edward’s story, in some cases verbatim. The play voices Edward’s old sense of inadequacy as Ingrid projects her assumptions about his perceived disfigurement. She tries casting all sorts of guys who “look the part”—basically, actors from that instructional video—but Edward insists it’s the role he was born to play. With mask in hand, he nails the part.

It’s at this point that A Different Man performs its own transformation. What begins as underdog story morphs into an unnerving parable about having comfort in one’s skin. If Edward has imposter syndrome trying to make a career as an actor with an unconventional look, he experiences newfound crippling self-doubt with his near-perfect mug when a near-doppelgänger waltzes into rehearsals.

Oswald (Adam Pearson) physically resembles Edward prior to his treatment. But he boasts confidence and spirit Edward never thought possible with his old face. As Oswald shadows the play and offers Ingrid some technical guidance, the company and, in turn, Edward face a dilemma: do they cast an actor who fits the part in spirit or in both body and spirit? Unable to share his lived experience lest he expose his double life to Ingrid, Edward wrestles with the irony of taking a part from someone who might not land a gig otherwise.

Writer/director Adam Schimberg offers a fascinating character study as Edward’s newfound confidence collapses. He’s a leaky ceiling with a bad patch job: some quick plaster can’t fix what’s rotted underneath. The film nimbly explores questions surrounding the body beautiful alongside social factors and pop culture tropes that conflate disability with monstrosity.

Schimberg’s darkly funny confrontation of ableism flips the horror back on the “normies.” It’s what’s inside that counts. Schimberg’s script, meanwhile, respectfully doesn’t make Oswald the focus of jokes, discomfort, or ridicule. Anyone who perceives Oswald or ‘old Edward’ as lesser than will ultimately be looking in a mirror. Being as hot as Sebastian Stan isn’t all that if a man can’t hold himself up with his own validation. Edward’s self-doubts post-transformation eclipse whatever shyness he experienced before.

A Different Man finds its dramatic weight in the authority these man command on screen. Stan brilliantly inhabits Edward’s discomfort, while Pearson expressively externalizes the joie de vivre that distinguishes one man from the other. Pearson, whom audiences may recognize from a brief appearance in Under the Skin, makes Oswald B.D.E. personified. The guy’s the embodiment of confidence and swagger.

Stan and Pearson have electric chemistry like duelling compounds. One’s energy feeds the other with Oswald seemingly sucking the life from Edward whenever they share the frame. The space they claim speaks volumes. The way Stan deflates his character, creating a different man without physically wrinkling his veneer, is a feat of juggling interiority and exteriority. This is one movie that really knows how to get under a viewer’s skin.

A Different Man opens in theatres Sept. 27.