Scraggle

The best, and most impressive, thing about A Man Like Eva is the central performance of Eva Mattes — in alarmingly convincing male drag — as the Fassbinder character. With a scraggle of beard pasted on her face, a battered fedora on her head, and a swarm of contempt on her lips, Mattes — who has appeared in five Fassbinder films — could almost pass for the real thing.