Swiss Army Man (2016)

Review

97min

Genre:      Adventure, Comedy, Drama

Director:   Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert

Cast:        Paul Dano, Daniel Radcliffe, Mary Elizabeth Winstead…more

Writers:    Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert

-Synopsis-

A desperate man stranded on a deserted island finds solace in the company of a flatulent dead body which washes up on the shore; but this multi-purpose corpse is more than meets the eye, proving to be his salvation and the key to his self-discovery in what is surely the most surreal and bizarrely uplifting comedy/drama of the year.

We here at FilmPhonic have a penchant for quirky comedy/dramas that come from leftfield, so we were eagerly anticipating this directorial debut from frequent comedy collaborators and writer/director team of Dan Kwan & Daniel Scheinert, and thankfully indie dramedies don’t get much more off-the-wall than ‘Swiss Army Man’.

In what is virtually a two-hander, Paul Dano stars as socially awkward and depressed “Hank”; a stranded man on the brink of suicide who unexpectedly encounters Daniel Radcliffe’s mysterious flatulent corpse “Manny”, whose post-mortem body seems to have strange but useful abilities and even a new sense of life.

Led by the guiding star of love, together this unlikely pair embarks of a voyage of survival and a return to civilisation, which turns out to be a frank and crude but astute realisation of life’s meaning for “Hank”, and a rebirth for “Manny” in this simultaneously dumb and perceptive, hilarious and poignant, ludicrous and life-affirming indie comedy/drama.

The film is ambiguous and mysterious, deliberately depriving the audience of backstory and context; we never really find out how “Hank” ends up where he is and through the film we only get glimpses of the events which formed his rather tragic psyche, and Dano once again delivers a sterling performance, with perhaps his most sympathetic role to date.

Meanwhile “Manny” is a complete mystery throughout; a bizarrely semi-reanimated corpse with gross bodily functions which prove mightily handy, and make him a “Frankenstein”-like guardian angel character with no memory, who both learns from and teaches “Hank” about the things we take for granted in life.

With “Manny” Daniel Radcliffe continues his noble quest to play a cornucopia of characters in every type of film possible; delivering arguably his best and certainly most fascinating performance to date, and an ironic one since we recently saw him re-animating a corpse as “Igor” in ‘Victor Frankenstein’, and now he is one.

Thanks to the striking nature cinematography by Larkin Seiple and a wonderfully quirky and harmonic original soundtrack from Andy Hull & Robert McDowell, which not only builds atmosphere but becomes part of the story, ‘Swiss Army Man’ has a distinctly magical quality which almost makes it an uplifting modern myth. All of which perfectly combines with a narrative ambiguous enough to keep us guessing till the end, is what we see “Hank’s” psychological manifestation or is it reality within this fantasy?… you decide.

‘Swiss Army Man’ may yet prove to be just too damn off-the-wall and may have limited appeal with mainstream audiences; this isn’t your conventional survival drama concerned with a geographical quest, but rather a existential journey involving a psychologically troubled man who’s paralysed by fear and regret.

You never really know where they are, and it shouldn’t matter, but the tone of the film constantly changes; there are plenty of weird and reflective moments but the lack of continuous incident might make the journey seem dull and directionless for some, and the on-the-nose ending rather takes away from the ambiguous nature of the rest of the film.

The Bottom Line…

For us though this is a completely worthwhile indie oddity from two filmmakers with a unique voice, a wonderfully wacky comedy/drama which is simultaneously crude and endearing, whilst deceptively layered.‘Swiss Army Man’ is a wholly unconventional vessel for delivering an uplifting message about embracing love, letting go of fear and living life… with all its pitfalls and potential.

Similar films you may like (Home Video)

Cast Away (2000)

After crash-landing on a deserted island, a stranded Fed-Ex delivery man undergoes a remarkable physical and psychological transformation as he struggles to survive and get back to civilization in this survival epic starring Tom Hanks.

Directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt and Peter Von Berg among others.

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