The Rager Review - Swiss Army Man

The following review contains spoilers. If that's something you care about, then why are you reading this review. You really have no one to blame but yourself. 

Swiss Army Man is a film by "Daniels" the name to collectively identify the team of Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan that is seems to be famously known as "that Daniel Radcliffe farting corpse movie that a bunch of critics walked out on during Sundance." And of course, that's only scratching the surface of the film, even if it's the most prominent identifying feature of it. So let's just hit a few points in the plot to start things off.

Hank (played by Paul Dano) is stranded on an island for some time and has given up hope of rescue or surviving as he places a noose that's dangling at the mouth of a cave around his neck. Before Hank kills himself, he spots a body (Daniel Radcliffe) that has washed up onto the beach and after inspection, Hank realizes the body is dead. Hank resumes his hanging plans until the body practically explodes in a parade of backlogged flatulence. After riding him like a jet-ski to mainland, it's realized that the body (named Manny) has special powers fueled by farts and eventually comes back to life as the film progresses. The remainder of the film is mostly spent on Hank explaining what life is all about to Manny as they try to survive and find home.

I'll go ahead and say that I went into the theater a little biased towards this movies because it was scored by Manchester Orchestra band members Andy Hull and Robert McDowell, a band in which I'm a big fan of. I had heard the soundtrack a couple days prior to viewing the movie and it's fascinating and surprisingly organic as it's woven into the fabric of this odd movie.

Beyond the soundtrack, the movie was visually striking, most notably the montage scene as the absurdity of what we're witnessing makes it obviously the product of special effects but it doesn't take you out of the movie because by that time, you've accepted the premise and gladly along for the ride.

And while I'm on the subject of accepting the premise, one of the biggest takeaways for me, at least thematically, was how this film showed how just about anything can be normalized after a while. It takes a few minutes to accept the premise of the movie but soon thereafter, you don't really question the weirdness of the relationship between Hank and Manny (again, a corpse) until they return to civilization and everyone else looks through their lens of normality and realize exactly how odd all of this really is. And that, I believe is the purpose behind the fart motif (you know, like art motif...but with farts) is the point that Hank makes about it at the end, it's something we all do out of necessity and yet it's something we deem to be gross and shameful despite the fact that it's a natural bodily function. By and large, a lot of the film is spent breaking down seemingly dumb social constructs that don't exactly add up when you look at it and usually films that do that come off as pretentious but Swiss Army Man does it in a fun and entertaining fashion mostly due to the chemistry between the two actors.

Ultimately, we see evidence to the conclusion that we gradually reaching throughout the movie, Hank is a guy that just couldn't find his place in the world, he hates that he doesn't have the confidence to talk to the girl he likes and mix all that in with a guy that's been stranded on a deserted island for a while and that equals someone that becomes quite delusional. And speaking of the island, backstory seemed almost unimportant and the bits that were important were gradually unveiled as the plot continued. What little backstory that was needed to jump in at the beginning was covered in the opening title sequence as the camera found tiny boats Hank had made with short messages looking for help. What I loved about that specifically was that it served as a quick and clear introduction into the plot as well as overall tone of the film.

98% of this movie features Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe but overall, Swiss Army Man was carried on the shoulders of Paul Dano as he had to be the source of almost all of the emotion as Daniel Radcliffe's performance was mostly physical and delivering purposely flat-toned dialogue but even then managed a way to find peaks and valleys as the body became more animated as the film progressed. If you've ever seen Paul Dano in a movie, he's got that "I just transported to this weird place and I'm terrifyingly lost" look on his face mastered, a skill he hones into seamlessly at the end when they come back to civilization. All-in-all, I credit Dano for making us care about anything in this movie. It's because of his performance that we experience a swell of emotion as Manny rides off into the ocean at the end (again, powered by his farts), momentarily forgetting the absurdness of it all.

At the end of the film, I contemplated for a long time on whether or not I liked Swiss Army Man because it definitely wasn't a bad movie (that's right, a movie can still be a good movie even if it's not your specific cup of tea) but honestly, if a movie has me debating that in my mind as the credits roll, that usually means that it struck a positive chord with me. And that's true, Hank's struggle with dealing with the outside world and wanting to leave it all behind is something most people can identify with at least at point in their lives. Luckily for us, we never reach the point of actually sailing away in a boat and lose our minds on a deserted island but some people have a more difficult time finding their way and a smaller fraction of them never do. It's one of those things in life that doesn't come with an instruction manual and you just have to find out what works for you and then one day, without you even realizing it, you're happy and comfortable in your own skin. Just don't let that solution be stalking someone or becoming best friends with a corpse, farting or not.

So yes, after careful debate in my own mind, I've reached the conclusion that I did like this movie and I recommend people watch it at least once. You'll be glad you did about 2 or 3 days after you slosh it around in your brain for a couple days.