Trying to explain the plot of Swiss Army Man is...difficult, at best. When I tried to tell my dad what we were going to see on the 4th of July, it came out something like this: "So...Paul Dano is trapped on a deserted island. And he gets rescued by a corpse. Except the corpse farts a lot. And the corpse is played by Daniel Radcliffe and he can talk, but not move. So Paul Dano kind of drags him around the wilderness and they become friends."
...yeah. Real Sundance material, that is. Except, surprise surprise, it is. And not only is it actual Sundance material, it's freaking beautiful. No, really. It's amazing.
I'm not sure what kind of mental state a person has to be in to come up with something like Swiss Army Man, but I applaud writer-directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for taking that crazy creative energy and harnessing it into the most unique film I've seen all year. There's a huge risk with independent films like this one. Movies like Swiss Army Man are so hit or miss it's terrifying to even write one, let alone film it and release it. Take a few steps to the right and you hit Boyhood; take a few steps to the left and you face-plant into Antichrist. Making an experimental film is like jumping out of a plane: there's a lot of ways to wildly screw it up, but only one way to get it just right--and even then there's a huge chance you won't enjoy the experience.
But when it comes together right, like it does in Swiss Army Man? It's brilliant. You have to be borderline crazy to make it work, sure, and that usually means you have to be (at least a little) crazy to enjoy it the way you're meant to. Because really, it's weird. You have Dan Radcliffe playing a corpse, for God's sake. A farting corpse. A farting corpse who vomits drinkable water, can propel himself like a speedboat with his own flatulence, and turns into a compass when he gets a boner. I mean, that's weird, right? And then you have Paul Dano teaching him how to be human? Like...what? What is that? But against all odds, it works.
What makes Swiss Army Man work is, above all else, the relationship between the two leads. Again, this sounds absolutely absurd on paper: castaway befriends corpse. It sounds like the kind of short film a caffeine-addled art student would come up with ten minutes before filming it. But Manny (Radcliffe) is so adorably sweet and completely rude that you can't help but love him. He can't remember how he died. He can't remember who he was before he died. He can't remember a damn thing about the world...but the instinct to be a friend seems to run deep with him, because he doesn't waste any time in helping Hank (Dano), first by getting him off the island and then by helping him survive in the wilderness.
But the real magic is the movie's total lack of ability to give a shit. And I mean that as a compliment, because really--how many movies have you seen this summer, or ever, really, where the message of the film is literally "Screw you, I do what I want," with no "but only within reason" or "but only if you're cute" or "but only if it's socially acceptable on a grand scale" counter-message? Hank spends the entire film trying to explain to Manny, in increasingly disgusting detail, that it's not okay to do a lot of things in front of other people. The cringe-worthy "no, you can't think about my mom when you masturbate" scene is wrong, but it's so funny we don't even notice until afterwards how badly we never ever want to have a conversation like that. And when Hank shows Manny a picture of a dark-haired girl on his phone, and Manny instantly falls in love with her and Hank figures out he can use Manny's boner as a compass home...it's not exactly everyone's cup of tea, this kind of humor, especially since you know it's going to end painfully for one if not both of them, but it's amusing and certainly different enough to keep an audiences interest.
The scene where Hank walks Manny through talking to a girl is particularly beautiful, not because Paul Dano looks adorable in a grass skirt (okay, he does) but because it's such an amazing breakdown of the way it feels to take a risk of such magnitude. Beat by beat, Hank explains that when you see someone you like, you can't just go up to them and say anything; you have to plan it out, you have to say just the right thing, make just the right move, you have to know when to approach and when not to, and you cannot let on just how much it means to you that they say the right thing back. It's a new perspective for Manny--but it's stomach-twistingly familiar to the rest of us. And it makes the heartbreak that comes a few scenes later, when we learn the real history of Manny's dark-haired crush, feel that much more earned.
And...well, that's pretty much it. There's no political undertones like with Zootopia, and that in itself is a rarity: a film that doesn't try to take a stand on a grand level, but just lets the audience draw its own conclusion. You could interpret Swiss Army Man in a lot of ways--it's telling us to be ourselves, it's questioning social rules, it's telling us to live every day like our last--but at its core, there's really only one meaning that you absolutely have to take away: life is really, really freaking weird. Maybe you haven't found yourself abandoned on a beach, lost in the wilderness, or building houses with your best friend who just so happens to be a talking, farting, boner-directing corpse, but life is weird and it's more than okay to embrace that weirdness, it's necessary. The last line in the movie is, literally, "WTF." Sums up the way the audience feels about the movie, to be sure, but more importantly it sums up the way the main characters think about their lives. And I think that's pretty damn cool.
In terms of the movie's technical aspects, it's beautiful. The cinematography is nothing short of magical, whether it's focused on Daniel Radcliffe's naked butt (which, surprisingly, is not as enticing as one would imagine it to be) or on the ominous landscape surrounding Hank and Manny. There are montages straight out of the most Linklater-esque indie blockbuster you could imagine, complete with tea lights winking in the background while two characters smile and dance in the foreground, dreamy sunlit characters entering the frame in slow-motion detail, and sparkling waves of water splashing across the frame and enabling lens flare. It's classic, but the beauty of the camerawork more than makes up for the cliché editing of the montages.
No, but seriously. This film is so Linklater, even Linklater would look at it and go "Bit derivative, don't you think?" But like every other choice the directors made that stacked the odds against success, it actually works. They manage to sneak in half the traits of last year's big winners: an all-star main cast (Spotlight), a beautiful, classic indie aesthetic (Room), a hella weird sci-fi edge (Mad Max), a focus on interpersonal relationships rather than SFX (Room, Spotlight, Danish Girl...I could go on), a bit of a homoerotic undertone to tie it all together (do I really have to say it?)...hell, they even manage to sneak in a bear attack that all but openly references that memorable moment in The Revenant. Again, friendly reminder that this is a plotline that would have worked quite well as a Monty Python sketch, shot with the beauty of Von Trier's Melancholia. And somehow that combination goes together like peanut butter and chocolate--who would've thought?
Whether you love it or hate it--there really isn't any middle ground on this one, trust me--you can't deny that Swiss Army Man is a unique experience. When the Oscars season rolls around this year, I have a feeling that this is one of those films that they just won't be able to ignore.
...I mean, they can't ignore it. They've already voted for all the individual elements, remember? Ignoring the big picture would be a crying shame. Especially when, all things considered, it's a damn good film.
