Body swapping has been all the rage in 2024 cinema.

Skin Deep was the first release, about a couple’s retreat that experiments with body-swapping technology as a means of relationship therapy. 

Meanwhile, It’s What’s Inside (opening Friday) imagines a group of friends playing with a body-swapping toy as a party game…until the game stops being a party. 

And then there’s The Substance and A Different Man, unleashed into theaters on the exact same day. They’re “fuck around and find out” contemporary fables about two people who radically change their appearance out of some conviction that the way they look is what’s preventing them from living the lives of their dreams…

Two other connections between The Substance and A Different Man: both are about performers, and each is set in one of America’s two media capitals (The Substance in Los Angeles, A Different Man in New York City).