I've been looking forward to seeing this film for a while now. Not because I'm a huge Daniel Radcliffe or Paul Dano fan, but because from the trailers, it seemed like the perfect amount of heartfelt but wholly fucked-up. Lo and behold, Swiss Army Man delivered exactly that: a sweet and funny story about friendship that has just the perfect amount of offbeat dialogue and ridiculous, almost slapstick antics. Even though the message and overall narrative are quite a mess, I mostly enjoyed this film for its primal humor and quick editing. This movie is a quick watch that provides some generic laughs; I just simply don't agree that this film is nearly as deep as many independent film fans seem to think.
The audience is quickly thrown into this dark comedy by being introduced to Hank, played by Paul Dano, as he is stranded on an island literally on the edge of killing himself. With seemingly no hope to be found, Hank plans to end it all, but not before he sees the body of another man wash up on shore: Manny, played by Daniel Radcliffe. Hank soon finds out that Manny's corpse has extraordinary powers; powers that they both might be able to use to find their way back home. This peculiar plot is a flawless demonstration of how independent film can truly be something out-of-the-ordinary. A weird story such as this one would never be seen in bigger-budget Hollywood cinema and that fact gives this movie at least some of its charm. I loved the humor and dialogue shared between the two leads as they constantly grow and attempt to re-learn from each other the basic joys and struggles of life. There is a certain simplicity to this film that makes it at least entertaining, and for that, I applaud it. The witty lines back and forth were very well-timed and this is mostly due to their deadbeat performances. Both Dano and Radcliffe, as simple as they were, brought a decent amount of life to what could have been much blander characters. Despite its scarce redeeming qualities, my feelings throughout multiple points of this movie were perfectly summed up by Mary Elizabeth Winstead's final line: "what the fuck?"
This film's biggest issue is not how juvenile most of the humor was, but rather that nothing was made out of it. This film's plot follows the two guys and how their friendship grows over the course of their forest adventure trying to make their way back inland. Every single time that I would think a clear message was developing or every time the potential for a sweet moment was created, it would be interrupted by a literal fart joke. Daniel Radcliffe's character is first introduced as this farting corpse and that crude humor carries his comedic momentum whenever there is a pause in the pacing. While this pause could have been used for actual development, the writers resorted to these cheap laughs. Thus, there was no coherent message or moral from this film that one could really distinguish, mostly because of the consistently ridiculous humor. This made it very hard for me to take this film seriously, especially towards the ending. Once the two friends make it back and Hank finds the house of Sarah (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), the girl in the picture, it is made clear that he had been stalking her, which definitely subtracts from any kind of sincerity that was trying to be built. After this revelation, Manny ends up sailing away and off to a (supposedly?) better life in a very abrupt ending. The writing and directing from Kwan and Scheinert could have used a lot of work in order to make this movie not so difficult to relate to.
A few of the technical pieces that I did enjoy, however, were the editing and the writers' use of Manny's weird abilities. Matthew Hannam's editing was very quick and intuitive, making good use of the short runtime and humorous montages. Hannam was definitely able to nail the dark and offbeat tone of this film through the way he cut it, particularly the two characters' actions. As for their actions, not many special effects or crazy stunts were performed in this movie, which is definitely noticeable due to its independent budget. However, that was not a bad thing, as the way Manny's strange movements and multi-use body worked for the camera was hilarious to watch unfold.
Swiss Army Man is exactly what one could expect from an independent film about an indestructible corpse that learns the true meaning of life and friendship. With some decently comedic performances from Dano and Radcliffe, I got many laughs out of this film, but nothing else. The lackluster story and message, unfortunately, killed any potential that this film had to become anything greater or more memorable.
My Rating: ★★½
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