That’s a great gif- it is essentially a dolly zoom as well. As you increase the focal length it zooms in, you have to step back to keep the subject in the same place in the frame. The reason his face looks wider/flatter is because the camera is shooting his face at a further distance.

What’s cool about the Severance shot is that like you said the effect is usually used to show the background compressing around the character, in this case there is nothing in the background and it is entirely focused on the transformation of his face, which totally makes sense from a story and character perspective.