Swiss Army Man

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Dan Kwan, Daniel Scheinert/Starring: Paul Dano, Daniel Radcliffe and Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Swiss Army Man is odd; no doubt about it. It is unpredictable, fun, amusing but also infuriating at times. The story is deceptively simple but its plot is hardly complicated. If you demand your movies be tethered to realism, this ain't your flick. Depending on your taste and expectations, this film will either be great fun or unending tedium. It exceeded my expectations but with some objective distance, much of its charm and off-the-wall humor will almost certainly evaporate. If my opinion of the movie seems decidedly noncommittal, it's because I can't seem to completely make up my mind about it.

Paul Dano plays Hank; a young man who is stranded, presumably on an island, though the place is hardly tropical and the environs seem strangely Pacific Northwest. As Hank, ragged and desperate, stands atop a plastic cooler with a noose around his neck; ready to consummate his suicide, he sees a body washed up on the beach. Suddenly Hank is gripped with curiosity and hope. He calls out even as his feet dangle precariously above the ground. A fortunate snap of his makeshift noose cancels his suicide, which frees him to investigate the body.

He finds the body belongs to a young man (Daniel Radcliffe), whose eyes seem lifeless though his body shows signs of life. How Hank determines this is given away in the trailer. All I will say about it is that it involves flatulence. As the audience will soon discover, flatulence plays a significant role in the film; it becomes a strange tool Hank exploits deftly (don't ask). Soon Hank discovers the washed up body has other attributes, which may not qualify him as a superhero but prove useful, nonetheless.

Hoping the young man will help him get off the island, Hank drags him to shelter inside a cave. When the heretofore mute young man actually speaks, Hank is horrified but also delighted that Manny, as he is subsequently called, is alive and capable of speech.

As Manny slowly comes to life and conversation, we learn little about his past or how he washed up on the island but we learn much about Hank. In Hank's possession is his cellphone, which features a picture of a beautiful, young woman Manny finds alluring. Wanting to share her identity with his new friend, Hank tells Manny the woman is someone he saw on the bus every morning but never had the courage to speak to. Manny becomes infatuated with the girl and before long, Hank makes a mock-up of a bus with debris and junk found on the island and even dresses himself to resemble the woman for Manny's delectation.

As the story moves along, it remains unclear just where Hank is stranded and if he is really stranded at all. The sheer ubiquity of human garbage makes Hank's claim about needing rescue suspect. One begins to wonder if Manny is actually real or just Hank's mental projection.

But in the meantime, Hank (and we) become acquainted with Manny's multi-talents. Utilizing Manny's flatulence, the two men are able to leave the island, motorboat style, with Hank riding his friend's back. How well one is attuned to the depiction of bodily functions in movies will determine how and if one finds this scene (and all the scenes involving flatulence) funny or just plain juvenile. They arrive at a place that looks pretty much like the place they left, which supports the idea of the island as a state of mind rather than a literal, physical place.

Hank also finds Manny's talents extend to dispensing water, like a drinking fountain, firing makeshift projectiles from his mouth and firing a grappling hook from his throat (again, don't ask; you have to see it for yourselves), among others.

It becomes apparent as we move further that the story isn't really about the two men but Hank's existential problems he faces in life, which include an unhappy relationship with his father and his inability to deal with his feelings.

The story reaches some kind of resolution when the two men discover civilization is literally beyond the next hill. They turn up in the yard of the woman in the cellphone photo (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who has been in some very interesting films of late), who is naturally aghast to see Hank and his shabby appearance. We see that the young woman has a family and a suburban home, which makes her inaccessible to Hank. Shortly thereafter, the two men become a news item, which brings Hank's father to the scene.

Though the denouement is positive for Hank, the mystery of Manny's real identity eludes everyone, as he vanishes as quickly as he arrives. It doesn't take a genius to see Manny is an allegorical figure and a manifestation of Hank's better angels or psyche or however the viewer chooses to see him.

How all this plays and how well the filmmakers sell the movie's premise is partly contingent on the performances of its two principle actors. Paul Dano excels at playing emotionally or psychically wounded oddballs and is quite exceptional here. Radcliffe is no less odd and no less affecting. One can give him credit for being a good sport; playing a character with off-color physical attributes is probably a challenge.

The Daniels; as the writer/director team call themselves (Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), have brought something out of the ordinary to summer cinema. With Independence Day stinking up the multiplex, it's nice to have something as strange as Swiss Army Man as a unique alternative.

I didn't love The Daniels' film but it left me guessing, which is always a quality worth paying for. We'll see if the film endures.