This is a movie who's concept sounds awful on paper; A man stranded on an island befriends a corpse with magical powers that washes up on the beach and they try to find their way back to civilisation together. And yet the trailer held the promise of something much deeper under the inherent silliness. Nevertheless, while I was prepared for a bizarre outing, Swiss Army Man turned out to be even weirder than I expected. Even after having slept on it, I'm still not sure what to make of it.
The bulk of the movie is Hank, a lonely, suicidal man, stranded away from civilisation, travelling through a forest with a dead body guiding the way. The body seems to supply Hank with everything he needs, like projectile spit for water, or the ability to shoot harpoons from his mouth. In return, Hank teaches Manny, the corpse, all about love, life, and what is socially acceptable (pro-tip, it's not farting or erections). It comes to light that Hank has a crush for a girl he saw on the bus, who he has become somewhat fixated with, and so Manny by extension becomes fixated with as well, and they roleplay various scenarios that never happened.
Swiss Army Man is labelled as a comedy, so there are jokes, and it is reasonably light-hearted. Unfortunately, bar a few choice moments, the humour did absolutely nothing for me. In fact I would go so far as to say it kind of ruined the experience for me. The humour in Swiss Army Man isn't just crude, it's juvenile. Crude humour I can deal with, but juvenile humour is just not my dish. The biggest running joke of the whole movie is that Manny farts a lot. He's a dead body full of decomposition gases, of course he farts a lot. But you know, farting is funny so that makes this a comedy right? Erections as well, Manny gets erections when he looks at pictures of half-naked women, and that's funny too, obviously.
Thing is, while this juvenile humour took me out of the movie completely, and is not my kind of humour at all, I can at least understand it's reasoning. Half the movie's message is about what is and isn't socially acceptable. Farting and getting an erection in public are generally considered big taboos, but the movie's point is why? They're natural processes of the human body and shouldn't be ashamed of. Everyone farts. Everyone poops. Everyone masturbates. If everyone does it, why is everyone so worried about other people knowing it? As movie messages go, it's a fairly unique one to approach.
The acting is pretty top-notch across the board though. Paul Dano does what he does best as the nerdy, shy Hank. He shows a real turmoil, and his conversations with a dead body are so natural. For me though, the star of the show is Daniel Radcliffe who once again goes out of his way to separate himself from the Harry Potter image. His dead body impression is the most accurate I've seen. They had a dummy available, but he insisted on doing most of it himself, and it shows. His floppiness is unmatched, and his ability to move his body in unnatural ways and resist any kind of flinching is really impressive. On the more emotional side though, he shows a fantastic sense of innocence and curiosity that obviously mirrors Hank's own psyche.
The last thing I'll note is the soundtrack, which is almost entirely acapella. It's spurned on by the two characters themselves, layered up from sounds they make and notes they hum and harmonise together. There's one moment in particular that uses a full acapella version of the Jurassic Park theme, and that alone almost makes the movie worth watching.
I'm still not sure what to make of Swiss Army Man. It has it's good moments and it's bad moments. Fundamentally it is simply one of the most unique and original movies on the market. The Daniels' ability to take what sounds like such a god-awful concept and work it into something that's almost deep and moving is impressive. It's biggest sin is that it simply doesn't make a whole load of sense and makes no effort to try and explain anything, instead opting to offer opposing clues to cement different interpretations, making any interpretation null and void. Was it a story about a man and his dead body finding their way back home, or was it a story about a man and his dead body obsessing over a girl they don't know and being driven mad by loneliness? Even now I'm left clueless. It was a find movie of self-discovery right up until the third act when it just stopped making any kind of sense at all. I give Swiss Army Man a conflicted 6/10.
The bulk of the movie is Hank, a lonely, suicidal man, stranded away from civilisation, travelling through a forest with a dead body guiding the way. The body seems to supply Hank with everything he needs, like projectile spit for water, or the ability to shoot harpoons from his mouth. In return, Hank teaches Manny, the corpse, all about love, life, and what is socially acceptable (pro-tip, it's not farting or erections). It comes to light that Hank has a crush for a girl he saw on the bus, who he has become somewhat fixated with, and so Manny by extension becomes fixated with as well, and they roleplay various scenarios that never happened.
Swiss Army Man is labelled as a comedy, so there are jokes, and it is reasonably light-hearted. Unfortunately, bar a few choice moments, the humour did absolutely nothing for me. In fact I would go so far as to say it kind of ruined the experience for me. The humour in Swiss Army Man isn't just crude, it's juvenile. Crude humour I can deal with, but juvenile humour is just not my dish. The biggest running joke of the whole movie is that Manny farts a lot. He's a dead body full of decomposition gases, of course he farts a lot. But you know, farting is funny so that makes this a comedy right? Erections as well, Manny gets erections when he looks at pictures of half-naked women, and that's funny too, obviously.
Thing is, while this juvenile humour took me out of the movie completely, and is not my kind of humour at all, I can at least understand it's reasoning. Half the movie's message is about what is and isn't socially acceptable. Farting and getting an erection in public are generally considered big taboos, but the movie's point is why? They're natural processes of the human body and shouldn't be ashamed of. Everyone farts. Everyone poops. Everyone masturbates. If everyone does it, why is everyone so worried about other people knowing it? As movie messages go, it's a fairly unique one to approach.
The acting is pretty top-notch across the board though. Paul Dano does what he does best as the nerdy, shy Hank. He shows a real turmoil, and his conversations with a dead body are so natural. For me though, the star of the show is Daniel Radcliffe who once again goes out of his way to separate himself from the Harry Potter image. His dead body impression is the most accurate I've seen. They had a dummy available, but he insisted on doing most of it himself, and it shows. His floppiness is unmatched, and his ability to move his body in unnatural ways and resist any kind of flinching is really impressive. On the more emotional side though, he shows a fantastic sense of innocence and curiosity that obviously mirrors Hank's own psyche.
The last thing I'll note is the soundtrack, which is almost entirely acapella. It's spurned on by the two characters themselves, layered up from sounds they make and notes they hum and harmonise together. There's one moment in particular that uses a full acapella version of the Jurassic Park theme, and that alone almost makes the movie worth watching.
I'm still not sure what to make of Swiss Army Man. It has it's good moments and it's bad moments. Fundamentally it is simply one of the most unique and original movies on the market. The Daniels' ability to take what sounds like such a god-awful concept and work it into something that's almost deep and moving is impressive. It's biggest sin is that it simply doesn't make a whole load of sense and makes no effort to try and explain anything, instead opting to offer opposing clues to cement different interpretations, making any interpretation null and void. Was it a story about a man and his dead body finding their way back home, or was it a story about a man and his dead body obsessing over a girl they don't know and being driven mad by loneliness? Even now I'm left clueless. It was a find movie of self-discovery right up until the third act when it just stopped making any kind of sense at all. I give Swiss Army Man a conflicted 6/10.