Horror movies have taught us to shudder before a bathroom mirror, lest an assailant suddenly appear, looming behind an unsuspecting protagonist, as the medicine-cabinet door swings shut. But not all reflections are jump scares in waiting, and not all victims and predators are distinguishable. This week brings two pictures, each a conceptually bold, mordantly funny cautionary tale, in which a mirror bears witness to an astonishing transformation—a miracle, or so it seems, that gradually curdles into a nightmare. In “A Different Man,” a disfigured face is peeled off, revealing smooth skin and chiselled features just underneath. In “The Substance,” a woman’s dream of eternal youth is fulfilled as she gives violent birth to her own younger, shapelier doppelgänger. You needn’t be a David Cronenberg fan (though I suspect one of the filmmakers is) to find yourself murmuring his most famous mantra: “Long live the new flesh.”
In “A Different Man,” a thrillingly mercurial third feature from the writer and director Aaron Schimberg, Sebastian Stan plays Edward Lemuel, a mildmannered New Yorker with a genetic disorder called neurofibromatosis. With bulging tumors above the neck, he’s “facially different,” in the parlance of a workplace sensitivity-training video in which he appears as an actor. But little such sensitivity greets Edward in the real world. People gawk and flinch on the subway; a comely neighbor, Ingrid (Renate Reinsve), upon meeting him, lets out an involuntary shriek. She and Edward soon strike up a friendship, but the suspicion lingers that Ingrid, an aspiring writer, might be nosing around for good material. Sure enough, she later drafts a semi-biographical play, titled “Edward,” which she keeps shredding and rewriting, struggling to walk an empathetic tightrope over an exploitative chasm.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة September 23, 2024 من The New Yorker.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة September 23, 2024 من The New Yorker.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
The Dark Time. - On the Arctic border of Russia and Norway, an espionage war is emerging.
On the Arctic border of Russia and Norway, an espionage war is emerging. The point of contact between NATO and Russia's nuclear stronghold is the small town of Kirkenes. For years, Russia has treated the area as a laboratory, testing intelligence and influence operations before replicating them across Europe.
MIRROR IMAGES
‘A Different Man” and The Substance.”
THE FOOTBALL BRO
Pat McAfee brings a casual new style to ESPN.
OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY
Proximity to wealth proves perilous in Rumaan Alam’ novel Entitlement.”
EYES WIDE SHUT
How Monet shared a private world.
WITH THE MOSTEST
The very rich hours of Pamela Harriman.
HUGO HAMILTON AUTOBAHN
On the Autobahn outside Frankfurt. November. The fields were covered in a thin sheet of snow.
TRY IT ON
How Law Roach reimagined red-carpet style.
SORRY I'M NOT YOUR CLOWN TODAY
Bowen Yang's trip to Oz, by way of conversion therapy and S..N.L.”
SNIFF TEST
A maverick perfumer tries to make his mark on a storied fashion house.