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Edward is an actor who lives with neurofibromitosis, a genetic condition which manifests in him with disfiguring facial features, the kind typified in The Elephant Man. He is used to being stared at, and he has created a full life though he has yet to find a lover who can accept him for who he is and not what he looks like. He takes an experimental drug which over time removes all of the skin and tumors leaving only the handsome face of Sebastian Stan. But Edward has trouble adapting to his new life, one that has him working as a very successful real estate broker, yet he is drawn back to the theater and to auditions, when he discovers that his only appeal as an actor is his old face. He doesn't quite know how to live, how to be in the world without the face and life experience that he knows well. The new look doesn't comfort him, it unnerves him. When he meets and befriends another actor with the same condition who seems to live in the world without shame, without judgement, he seems to question his whole life and his whole personality.
The film does a good job of playing on the title - is he a different man now that he has a new face and a new life? Are the two phases of his life separate so as to make his one identity two different identities? Does a man with the same condition but a vastly different life experience show him what he could have been had he been a different kind of man? While my husband referred to this as "The Substance but for men," the execution of the change and the commensurate challenges to one's identity make this film far more interesting and far less gross.
It's not for everyone and I wouldn't say that you MUST see this movie. But if you're willing to go on the journey with Edward to identify the core of identity, you might just like it. Or perhaps you would if you were a different... never mind.
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