The Best And Worst Of The 2016 Sydney Film Festival, Reviewed
Sorry, the movie about Daniel Radcliffe's farting corpse is a bit of a stinker.
The Film That Could Seriously Disappoint You
Swiss Army Man, dir. Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert
Starring: Paul Dano, Daniel Radcliffe
Reviewed by: Matt Roden
I’ve never been a big fan of fart jokes. I remember, as a child, staying at the house of a neighbourhood family where all four members, kids and adults alike, were reduced to giggles, guffaws, and loud exclamations whenever anyone “let one rip”. The mother of this family once washed out my mouth with soap for swearing.
Should I link my life-long distaste of potty humour with that gag-inducing bit of parental over-stretching? The writer/directors of Swiss Army Man might think so, as they seem a little obsessed with the small moments that supposedly define their characters; or at least the characters in this incredibly twee film that relies on emotional epiphany scored with Arcade Fire-esque strings to balance fart jokes with feelings.
Hank (Paul Dano) appears to be trapped on a deserted island, starving and ready to end it all, when a body appears washed up on the shore. This body contains considerable amounts of gas, so much so that it might be used as a flotation device to get him home. Though he doesn’t quite make it all the way back to civilisation, Hank does come to realise that Manny, as the corpse reveals himself to be named, is not as dead as might seem. Or, if he is dead, he at least has the capacity to talk, chop trees, start fires, and asking naïve yet pointed questions that reveal one’s true, fraught self. Hank teaches Manny the meaning of everything from poop to love and, in doing so, he recognises and grapples with the human inconsistencies he maintains around most topics.
Dano and Radcliffe make for interesting casting, if not watching. They’re not really an odd couple, as they’re both small placid white men. Dano, so fantastically askew in everything from Love and Mercy to There Will Be Blood, is reduced to shambling in the kind of role we booed Michael Cera out of cinema for propagating. Radcliffe proves game and adept at bringing life to a corpse, but doesn’t really exude the ‘otherness’ that Zach Galifianakis or Will Forte can bring to normal dudes. A little more weird might be in order if you’re playing the part of a slowly decomposing action figure. Occasionally the film flirts with the two being each other’s actual soul mate, but it quickly retreats to moony-eyed heteronormative ideals. Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays a girl in a picture: a sun-dappled dream of a life that might have been, if only Hank weren’t so shy and into Michel Gondry.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Scott Pilgrim vs the World, and Love dissected the concepts of Manic Pixie Dream Girls and the selfishness of unrequited, mopey boy crushes well. Swiss Army Man occasionally edges towards being as inventive as the first two, but may even be less insightful on the relationship between depressed young men and the world around them than Zach Braff or latter-day Cameron Crowe. Eventually the suspected cracks in Dano’s character are revealed, but by then the film is so entranced with its own grating sing-a-long score and, oh come on, really? It’s farting again. Jesus Christ.
For fans of: hipster-baiting life insurance ads, ill-considered student films, and, I guess, if you’re willing to label yourself as such, farts.
Opening in Australia: July 14
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