Review of Swiss Army Man (2016) by Brian S — 29 Jun 2016

A completely bizarre philosophical treat that surpassed my expectations in every way.

What most people know about the film is that Paul Dano uses a farting corpse played by Daniel Radcliffe to get home from a stranded island, but it's a lot more than that, and so is Radcliffe's corpse. I am not a fan of fart jokes, I hate typing the word fart, but for the sake of this movie and its message, I have to do it. I didn't expect to be a fan of the crudeness of this movie, and the crude jokes weren't my favorite part, but they are unbelievably justified in such an unexpected way that it turned a mirror on me and my own disdain for fart jokes. I can only applaud a film that makes me reconsider my own reaction to its first ten minutes.

While I found this movie to be extremely thought provoking, it's also flat out entertaining and fun. Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe are funny and have a very deep chemistry together. Watching this film follow its own rules and be so strange is not only fun, but triumphant because it's a celebration of oddness. I was surprised with the amount of heart the movie has, making it an emotional treat as well as an intellectual one.

The film is a very ambitious exploration of themes such as life and death, fear and love. The philosophical ambition recalls some of my favorite movies like The Tree of Life and Synecdoche New York, and the film's many ideas come together with masterful consistency. Not to say that this is one of my all time favorite movies, but it is rare that a film feels like it contains its own philosophical manifesto in the way that Swiss Army Man does.

It's a kind of transcendental experience in many ways, reflecting on what life really is and the fears that society creates about being gross or weird even when it's really just authentic. It reveals the restrictions societal norms place on our happiness. It's beautiful to see Hank and Manny embrace their true beings in the isolated forest, unafraid of judgement, happier than they've ever been.

This film being weird is itself is actually it embracing its own ideas. If you are repelled by it, or if you cringe at the crudeness, you're not listening. I cringed, but I listened, and then I understood, and it was fantastic. Nothing in the film is weird for the sake of being weird, either. Manny's body (Daniel Radcliffe) isn't just a funny talking dead body. Rather, the character represents the perspective of death, but not in a morbid way. Much of the film follows Hank (Paul Dano) as he tries to explain to Manny the ways of society as the two travel back home. On their journey, they reconsider what society really is, what it means to be human, and if society is really the best place to be human.

I found Swiss Army Man to be about a lot of different things, and yet all of its ideas come together in a coherent whole. The lines between life and death are blurred throughout the film, where Hank's character is learning the beauty of death and incorporating that perspective into living a better life, while Manny learns of the fear that society creates about living this way. The meshing of these two states brings up questions about how this fear of judgement is often what keeps love out of our reach. The very act of fear, of avoiding rejection or death, is ironically what left Hank where he was at the film's beginning, with a noose around his neck, afraid of life without love. Hank and Manny begin to reject these fears, seeing what a beautiful world there is beyond them. In realizing the beauty of death, they are able to create love and therefore live life.

Swiss Army Man is an inspiring and transcendent journey. Even though the world Manny and Hank dream of will never exist, the film gives us a glimpse of that, making it a unique, must see experience.