A film by Aaron Schimberg
With: Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve, Adam Pearson, Miles G. Jackson, Patrick Wang, Neal Davidson, Jed Rapfogel, Marc Geller, James Foster, Jr., JJ McGlone
Aspiring actor Edward undergoes a radical medical procedure to drastically transform his appearance. But his new dream face quickly turns into a nightmare, as he loses out on the role he was born to play and becomes obsessed with reclaiming what was lost.
Our rate: *
A rather far-fetched story, which borrows from Elephant Man in its starting point, and imagines it will be the breeding ground for a broader drama, such as those that fuel Broadway plays. Beauty and the Beast revisited Kenneth Brannagh-style, the director makes the mistake (in our opinion) of pressing on the references that serve as his inspiration. By trying to apply a miraculous recipe, he instead produces an insipid, pompous, predictable and dusty work. The feeling of déjà-vu quickly sets in, and poor Renate Reinsve (La Belle, ambitious and ill-intentioned) is quickly cast in a secondary, caricatured role, alongside Sebastian Stan (the Beast, then the Prince, then the fool), whose character carries all the dramatic weight… At no point do we enter the fable, the romance or the artistic, intellectual or narrative concept. No vertigo, then.