The definitions of true friendship are stretched in this disarmingly original tale by directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. In “Swiss Army Man”, we meet Hank (Paul Dano), a lonely man on the verge of suicide, who is stranded on a deserted island, having given up all hope of ever making it home again. His prognosis for any sprout of life seems void, But one day everything changes when a corpse named Manny (Daniel Radcliffe) washes up on shore; and the two become fast friends, and ultimately go on an epic adventure that will bring Hank back to Sarah (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), the woman of his dreams. Propelled by Manny’s overabundance of flatulence that is being used as a jet-ski (Yes you read that correct), as well as his boner being used as a compass to return to society (Once again, still reading that right), the two form the strangest of bonds that takes us through a heartwarming journey on the importance of surrounding ourselves with people we love. This dramatic comedy is rated R for adult language and sexual material.
Coming out of Sundance last year, this movie was known as “The farting movie”, and to label this film as such reveals to me that: 1. That’s click bait for that particular article, and 2. Those people didn’t fully grasp the deep meaning beneath the unorthodox traits that this movie presented. The farting and boner aspects are only a small percentage of the bigger spectrum that this movie presents itself. They really serve as the something different that puts the butts in the seats, but it’s something bigger hiding beneath the moral compass that makes you stay. One could take a lot from it’s deeper qualities, but to me I saw the movie turning the mirror around on us as a society and revealing how we view others who are deemed as “different”. What’s not acceptable in our society is carried through like motions in a courthouse, and the team of Kwan and Scheinert really communicate how frustrating it is to obide by everybody else’s comforts. What’s refreshing about the way that the movie toys with our ridiculous methods of living and interacting with others is that it slowly navigates through every ridiculous thing we view as strange, often limiting our own ways of communicating love and other emotions. The fear of loneliness is also a big aspect in this movie, and sometimes it’s that monster that forces us to seek out companionship in the strangest of places. This is one of the smartest scripts that I have seen all year, and a lot of that boils down to it’s simplicity.
Clocking in at 90 minutes, the movie rarely ever drags or feels like a chore to watch, mainly because the story (Like our characters) is constantly moving on its journey to happiness. During the second act of the movie, I wasn’t particularly bored, but some of the setups don’t always receive the greatest results in life lessons. They are all very valuable, just some things are focused on for more time than they really deserve, causing the continuity flow to kind of halt in its tracks. This was really the lone problem that I had with the film, as everything with the movie’s technical aspects were perfect.
The sound mixing and editing is very on-point, with several scenes creating kind of a jump or garnering a legitimate concern for our characters in this brutal atmosphere. What the sound composition does is reminds us that this is a dangerous place that this man (Dano) has been cast away on, and the movie uses impactful snaps and thuds for the various scenes when our characters feel a little too big for their forest britches. I also greatly enjoyed the lightning fast transitional montage sequences, as they all feel in-sync with the kinds of rhythms and movements that the story’s creativity has going for it. The way that these scenes mingle with the ingeniously creative musical score is simply as compelling as the friendship between our two main protagonists. What the music does in this film plays an important role with really putting the audience in the moment alongside Dano and Radcliffe. All of the music comes from their own heads, and usually starts as mumble coming from their own mouths. It slowly builds louder into a triumphant musical narrative for the happiness that these men are instilling within each other, and I never stopped humming in the same monotonous manor that Radcliffe did.
Make no mistake about it, this is the single greatest friendship movie of our own current era. This is our Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. There’s a borderline romance between Hank and Manny’s growing chemistry, and I was ready for wherever their special union was prepared to take us. The double Daniels really have to make that friendship inviting to the audience, otherwise all will be lost with the film, and it all results in a story that you can root for while feeling every single emotion on the register that you can imagine. I laughed, worried and even teared up a little for our characters, and it takes two compelling performances to really make the investment feel justifiable. Paul Dano’s performance is so enthralling, and leaves a lot of room open for the audience to juggle whether this man really is insane or just haunted by the worst spell of loneliness that one can endure. His performance feels honest without being silly, and Dano certainly adds to an already impressive career that has won me over with roles in “Love and Mercy” and “Youth”. Daniel Radcliffe occasionally borrows the show from Dano, and really drives home the many changes in tone that the film endures. We are seeing the narratives and lessons through his eyes, so when his heart breaks, so goes ours. This is a difficult thing to accomplish, especially in what is presented as a dark comedy for a majority of the film, but Radcliffe never stumbles. For a character without a pulse, he has miles and miles of heart beating throughout this movie. He commits so much of himself to the very zombie-like trance of the character, and I feel like it is his most versatile of roles that he has taken to date.
“Swiss Army Man” was everything that I was expecting and more. Not everyone will get it, and that’s what is genius about the movie. If you cast this film out for being different, then you are the very people and society that it refers to in its educational diatribes. The double Daniels strike gold on a film that is impossible to ignore, but keeps you planted with its very madness that strikes an emotional chord or three. Capped off by terrific social commentary that borderlines satire, and you get a movie that never runs out of gas (Wink wink).
9/10