Young castaway Hank Thompson (Paul Dano) has given up on being rescued from a deserted island (yes, two such movies in one week; I promise that was unplanned), and so he's about to hang himself. Cue a corpse (Daniel Radcliffe) suddenly washing ashore just then, grabbing Hank's attention. After Hank then cuts himself free and resuscitates the corpse, it begins farting non-stop. His curiosity sparked, Hank then uses the corpse to go wind-surfing, and then learns it has even more powers including an endless drinking water supply. Soon after that, as it interacts more with Hank it learns to talk and adopts the name Manny. Manny remembers nothing about his former life and Hank seeks to teach him what he can about humanity and living. In the process they develop survival skills, watch movies, explore and party together until Hank discerns several important clues about Manny's story. Hank leads him to believe he's in love with Sarah (a wasted Mary Elizabeth Winstead), an individual bus passenger, but really it's Hank who has eyes for her but has never even spoken to Sarah because of his own shyness. (It turns out Sarah has a husband and young daughter anyway.) Now the boys hatch a plan to return to civilisation and meet their shared dream girl.
Dear God, this is a strange film. If I could compare it to something, I'd have to say it was like Cast Away meets Weekend at Bernie's meets Into the Wild. Please, take as long to process that as you need. But nonetheless, it somehow (if only just) steers clear of incoherence and pretension. Writer-directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, collectively known as the Daniels, here have concocted a narrative premise that shows an unabashed love of genre fusion and thinking outside the box, but they manage to make it into an engaging story because of the unusual yet metaphorically relatable character dynamic, which is performed with absolutely thorough chemistry. Dano is well-suited if typecast as Hank, but Radcliffe steals the show. Manny was a physically and mentally ambitious role, and by getting as much humour and pathos as he does from it alongside convincingly depicting all the rigorous gestures required, Radcliffe proves he was always going to have a steady post-Harry Potter career. I think it's easy his best turn yet.
The Daniels also infuse this with striking photography that does full justice to the Californian wilderness where it was filmed, and a score from Andy Hull and Robert McDowell that effectively contrasts the film's natural and urban settings and themes. As I said, Swiss Army Man is very strange, but never strange just for the sake of being different or important. A winner.
No comments:
Post a Comment