'Swiss Army Man' the artsy 'Weekend at Bernie's'
Roger Ebert used to say, “It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it is about it.”
What “Swiss Army Man” is about is a man (Paul Dano) who is stranded on an island and befriends a corpse (Daniel Radcliffe). The corpse, later named Manny, has special abilities — including flatulence strong enough to turn his body into a makeshift jet ski and a male body part that works as a compass when… I’m not sure if any of this can be said in a family newspaper.
The “what” reportedly prompted numerous walkouts at its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival premiere. The film still earned mostly strong reviews and is currently playing at River Park Square in Spokane. Fair warning — the first five minutes of the film contains a disturbing amount of dead body farting.
For those repulsed by the previous two paragraphs, read no further. This obviously isn’t the movie for you, and that’s OK. But the “how” of “Swiss Army Man” is what makes it one of the most original and entrancing movies of the year.
Written and directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (billed together onscreen as “Daniels”), “Swiss Army Man” is a visually arresting exploration of loneliness, friendship, the rejection of social norms and the consequences of that defiance. It’s a fanciful film (with plenty of juvenile humor) to be sure, but it never allows its premise to stray into callous absurdity.
The depth of performance and character-building is apparent even in those fart-centric early moments. Dano’s Hank is warm-but-unhinged, desperate-but-hopeful, and his interactions with Manny are constructed in a way that compliments the film’s drastic tonal shift in the final act, where Dano must anchor some tricky revelations.
Radcliffe, meanwhile, is playing Manny as much more than the dancing corpse in “Weekend at Bernie’s.” Manny can’t move on his own, but he eventually develops the ability to speak and ask questions about the world around him. Manny has no memory of his previous life or what life is even supposed to be, so the bulk of “Swiss Army Man” focuses on Hank teaching Manny about the joys of human connection.
More specifically, Hank begins to share memories of the love of his life (Mary Elizabeth Winstead in occasional flashes), and Manny soon falls for the idealized dreamgirl. Radcliffe, building a performance almost exclusively out of his voice and occasional facial expressions, is excellent as Manny journeys through a social awakening. He even gets to learn about the joys of “Jurassic Park.” Lucky corpse.
These are the moments where the Daniels show their cinematic prowess — Manny and Hank create their own world alone in the woods, and that world is a beautiful, if unrealistic, image of love, kinship and a place where people can drink fresh water regurgitated from the stomach of their good buddy without anybody making a thing about it.
“Swiss Army Man” is uniformly bonkers, with its ridiculousness serving as a needed counterbalance to the film’s more abstract ideas. Just when the Daniels start to get a little too artsy-romantic in its conceit, Hank uses Manny as a jet pack or an ax. There’s a whimsical energy about “Swiss Army Man,” so long as you can accept a super-powered corpse as whimsical.
The ending, which is way more downbeat and literal than the previous two acts, may be divisive even for folks so accepting of the film’s insanity. The movie needs the ending though, because without it “Swiss Army Man” could be more easily dismissed as a pointless barrage of crass jokes and pretty cinematography. I won’t spoil where “Swiss Army Man” goes, but the journey of Hank and Manny must end exactly where it does.
All of this to say “Swiss Army Man” worked on me, and that’s something I never thought I’d say about what could be loglined as “Cast Away” meets “Weekend at Bernie’s.” It’s a unique cinematic vision and a story thoughtfully told. Or maybe I just like fart jokes.
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Tyler Wilson can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.