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.

Youth

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Paolo Sorrentino/Starring: Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Rachel Weisz, Paul Dano and Jane Fonda

Paolo Sorrentino has established himself as one of film's premier visual stylists, as is evident with his new film Youth; a beautifully surreal story that induces a state that is something akin to narcotized bliss. It is also a film that challenges our perceptions; leaving us unable to properly sort fantasy from reality; dreams from waking consciousness. It leads us many places and when we think we have a firm grasp of what may be happening or what we may have seen, its final scene reminds us of how foolish we are to believe everything we see.
And as one might expect, youth and old age are pervasive themes but Sorrentino also has much to say about artists and how they are often helpless in controlling perception of their own work.

Sorrentino's story takes place in an alpine resort, where an American film director named Mick Boyle (a terrific Harvey Keitel) spends time working on the skeleton for a story with his creative team for his next project. Also at the resort is Mick's British friend Fred Ballinger (Michael Caine; also terrific); a celebrated composer who is approached by the Queen's emissary to request a performance of the works for which he is most known; music he believes to be his most accessible. The scene where the emissary pleads with Ballinger reveals the composer's stubbornness, as he refuses the Queen's request. Why Ballinger would refuse such a prestigious performance is revealed later.

As we get to know some of the resort guests, we also get to know the resort and its breathtaking surroundings. The majestic spread of mountain peaks and the green, grassy hillsides provide a beautiful backdrop for the dramas that unfold in and around the hotel.

Among other people we meet at the resort is a young American actor named Jimmy Tree, who, like Ballinger, is famous for work he is not especially proud of; that of a robot in a big budget Hollywood production. Another artist in retreat is a rotund man who we can guess is some sort of musician of international renown. His very presence elicits stares and later a mob of autograph seekers.

But we see other guests and the hotel personnel, whose mysterious lives beg examination but remain riddles for our tantalized imagination. One such example is a couple that provides bemusement and amusement for Fred and Mick, who bet on whether the the silent, uncommunicative pair will actually speak to one another at dinner. Seemingly suffering from mutual loathing, we discover later the couple feel anything but.

But at the story's center is Fred and Mick's friendship, which stretches back decades. Now in old age, the friend's keep tabs on the other's health; going so far as to share information about their latest micturition. While Fred wanders about the grounds and enjoys the resorts spa accommodations, Mick brainstorms with his young collaborators as they try to hammer out a story from volleyed ideas.

Sorrentino's storytelling methods are never conventional. As the story progresses, we begin to wonder if what we are seeing is real or some kind of dream. Strikingly odd images, such as one of expressionless guests walking slowly in a queue or a medium shot of reclining patrons in a pool make one feel the hotel is some sort of strange afterlife or weigh station for souls.

Ballinger's daughter Lena (Rachel Weisz), who also serves as his assistant, leaves the resort to join her boyfriend-who also happens to be Mick's son-on a Malaysian holiday, only to return when she discovers he is in love with another woman. The awkwardness of the problem become uncomfortably acute for Fred and Mick, particularly when Lena's boyfriend shows up with his new paramour.

Adding to Lena's misery is her relationship with her father, which has never been ideal. A poignant scene comes later in the film during Fred and Lena's massage, when she expresses her disappointment and anger about Fred's failings as a father. What comes to light are his numerous infidelities and his dalliance with a man; all at the expense of a wife who overlooked his unsavory, extracurricular activities. The shot of their ill-clad bodies are an apt visual metaphor for truths laid bare; naked truths in near naked bodies.

Images of youthful bodies juxtaposed with old and infirm frames are common; always calling attention to the film's overarching theme. Fred and Mick, though hardly blind to the youthful allure of the goddess-like perfection of female bodies who lounge near the pool, never try to mitigate their fading virility by trying to seduce them. In a Hollywood movie, Fred and Mick would try to bed the young women to salve the egos of the male audience.

One of my favorite scenes in the film takes place on the summit of a ski-run, as Mick and his young team look out over the incredible alpine peak expanse. In trying to explain to the young gathering how one's perspective changes as one grows old, Mick has one member of his group peer through both ends of an observation scope to vividly illustrate his point.

While Ballinger receives the Queen's emissary again for another summons, Lena's heartbreak takes an unexpected turn into good fortune. Meanwhile an actress Mick collaborated with many times in the past and whose participation in his movie guarantees it being made arrives at the hotel to give him disappointing news. The conversation that follows unearths old animosities and unbearable truths.
As for Ballinger, we see what has become of his wife during a scene where he pays her a visit in Venice. The way he lovingly gazes at his wife tells us the marriage wasn't necessarily the disaster Lena has portrayed it to be.

The film ends with a tragedy and a triumph though the last shot leaves some doubt as to whether anything we've seen is truth, a dream or merely the product of imagination.

As in his film The Great Beauty, Sorrentino's fascination with the themes of youth/beauty is very conspicuous. And in exploring said themes, he never succumbs to sentimentality nor does he try to spin the grim realities of aging into something fuzzy and golden. For Sorrentino, old age dispenses many bitter and ugly truths about one's life and relationships, which we disguise or rewrite into palatable lies. And as the characters try desperately to stave off old age and physical atrophy in the hotel's saunas, swimming pools and massage rooms, so too do they mend and rehabilitate truth to allow themselves to live.

Aside from the lovely camera work, the performances ground an otherwise otherworldly film. Harvey Keitel gives one of his most affecting performances while Michael Caine's Ballinger has a past that is almost irredeemably messy; a flawed history expressed in his weary face. Rachel Weisz almost steals the show with several, fine scenes; most notably in her angry monologue during said massage.

I haven't seen another film like Youth in this year-end movie season. In fact, I haven't seen a film like Sorrentino's in some time. His style almost seems like some kind of throwback to a time when filmmakers weren't afraid to marry story to surreal imagery; as we see so often in David Lynch's films.

What we ultimately see onscreen is magical and intoxicating. In a season of exceptional films, Sorrentino's stands on its own. He has firmly established himself as one of Italy's major cinematic talents in the 21st century.

Love and Mercy

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Bill Pohlad/Starring: Paul Dano, John Cusack, Elizabeth Banks and Paul Giamatti

Most rock biopics tend to dwell on musicians' reckless flights of Dionysian excess rather than the music itself. We see nothing of the former but learn much about the latter in director Bill Pohlad's excellent Love and Mercy . The film makes us witness to Beach Boy Brian Wilson's painstaking creative process, though it doesn't ignore the darker episodes of his life. Few narrative films about musicians take the time to detail how masterworks come into being. Though the film dramatizes much of the physical and mental dissolution in Wilson's life, we also come away with a sense of his musical brilliance and his need for creative growth; two qualities that have ensured his artistic viability.

Pohlad's imaginative camera work is buttressed by screenwriters Oren Moverman and Michael A. Lerner's terrific script. The story moves fluidly between Wilson's early years and the near past; between Wilson's formative musical life in the early 1960s' and his struggles with a malevolent and manipulative Svengali in the early 1990s'; a charlatan doctor who needlessly prescribed drugs to Wilson to essentially enslave the musician.

When the film begins, we see the elder Wilson (a very fine John Cusack) inside a Cadillac showroom. As he walks among the cars, a lovely saleswoman, Melinda Ledbetter (an equally fine Elizabeth Banks) approaches him. Finding Wilson a little odd, she is nevertheless intrigued. When she asks why an imposing man standing nearby is watching, Wilson identifies him as his bodyguard. In spite of Wilson's salient eccentricities, Melinda is drawn to him. While Wilson and Melinda chat inside a Cadillac, two other men arrive. One of the men is Dr. Eugene Landy (the always terrific Paul Giamatti); Wilson's shrink and self-assigned guardian. As the group exits the dealership, Melinda finds a note left behind by Wilson with three ominous words, which read as a kind of cry for help. The scene effectively and economically constructs a picture of Wilson's life in the 80s' and early 90s' and also introduces two pivotal people in his life; one who changes his life for the better and one who nearly drives him to insanity and financial ruin.

The film cuts to a montage of the Beach Boys in the early 1960s' as Brian, his brothers Carl and Dennis, cousin Mike Love and Beach Boys co-founder Al Jardin pose for promotional photos, perform onstage to screaming teenagers and record some of the band's biggest hits. We see the younger Brian Wilson (exceptionally played by Paul Dano) excitedly sharing his ideas for a new album; mentioning the many and varied instruments he intends to use. In discussing his expansive vision, he refers to The Beatles' music as a gauntlet the band must take up. While Carl, Dennis and Al Jardin show a willingness to share Brian's vision, lead singer Mike Love (Jake Abel) shows a stubborn resistance. Love's reactionary attachment to the Beach Boys' earlier songs grates on Brian, who would like nothing more than to move beyond surfing and car songs. As the story progresses, we see Love and Wilson continue to lock horns over the bands creative direction. But Love is only one of Brian's antagonists. Looming over the band and the lives of the Wilson brothers is their father Murray (Bill Camp); who, like Dr. Eugene Landy, is a brutal, controlling presence the Wilson boys fear and maybe loathe. Though a force behind the band's success, the father is of a mind with Love in his dismissal of Brian's new, more sophisticated approach to the Beach Boys sound. A scene where Murray expresses a strong dislike of one of Brian's new songs not only reveals his backward thinking but also his nature as a fatherly malcontent his son can never appease.

As the film swings between Wilson's later life and his early career, the story becomes a diptych of a man fighting two controlling forces in his life; his father and an unscrupulous man so domineering he thinks nothing of pulling a hamburger out of Brian's hand during a friendly get-together to teach him a lesson about restraint. The story parallels Wilson's two struggles: Wilson's self-extrication from his father's toxic presence and his fight to free himself from the sinister clutches of a man hellbent on destroying his mind and life.

Pohlad maintains dramatic tension in both chapters of Wilson's life. The barrier between past and present is often dissolved in nimble editing; scenes seamlessly drift from Wilson's early life to those of latter times.

The film would still be an affective drama if the story dealt mainly with Wilson's relationships but it offers something more. What sets Pohlad's film apart from lesser musical biopics are the scenes detailing Wilson's creative process in the studio. Seeing no need to continue touring with the band, Wilson devotes his time exclusively to writing and recording new music. Hiring some of the most respected musicians in the business, Wilson sets about creating a new album. His brilliance shines through as we see him direct the musicians with creative precision; requesting odd beats, melodic counterpoints, etc. Though many music biopics treat the subject's genius as a given, Pohlad's film troubles itself to show it.

During a break in recording, after the studio drummer rattles off names of the prominent musical talents he and the other musicians have worked with, he tells Wilson that his music stands tall among the best; an extraordinary compliment, to be sure.

The madness that Wilson was often prey to isn't ignored but shown as integral part of his psychological makeup. We begin to see bizarre behavior, such as Wilson holding a studio full of musicians captive while he gauges the vibes. Dissatisfied with what he finds, Wilson cancels a recording, in spite of the $5,000 cost. When Melinda asks the elder Wilson if he really did spend two years in bed, he tells her that it was actually three. In yet another scene, we see the younger Wilson sitting at a dinner gathering. Sensitive to ambient sounds that he might otherwise incorporate into his music, the collective din of cutlery becomes maddening cacophony until he screams for it to stop, which startles his guests.

In the film's final half-hour, we see Melinda's efforts to free Wilson from Dr. Landy's manic control become an ordeal. Wilson's housemaid uncovers a copy of his will in which the Doctor has made himself sole beneficiary of the estate, which makes it necessary for Carl Wilson to intervene on his brother's behalf. With Melinda's help, the Doctor's terrible machinations are brought to a definitive end.

I really liked Pohlad's film and for many reasons: superlative editing, imaginative visual compositions, top-notch script, et al. But a significant share of the credit for the film's artistic success goes to Paul Dano and John Cusack, whose compelling performances give us a sense of who Brian Wilson was and is. But the supporting cast is no less brilliant. Elizabeth Banks shows us Melinda's compassionate insight while Paul Giamatti conveys Dr. Landy's manipulative self-interest.

I can say I came away from Love and Mercy feeling I got more than just a docudrama about a rock star with his or her head in the music and a foot in the abyss. Pohlad (and the screenwriters) take the time to tell us why Wilson belongs in such rarefied company as Lennon and McCartney, Jagger and Richards or Bruce Springsteen.

As Paul McCartney himself once said, without The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, there would be no Sgt. Pepper. Though we see the recordings of a few tracks from the Beach Boys' landmark album in the film, we never hear it mentioned nor are we told anything about its impact on rock music.

There is also much more to be said about Wilson's erratic behavior in the period between the late 60s' and the decade thereafter but we can credit the screenwriters for exercising restraint. What we need to know we see. Anything more might be excess.

I think Love and Mercy is one of the better music biopics I've seen in sometime. How easy it would have been for the film to become a tawdry tale of drugs and hyperbolic behavior in the manner of Oliver Stones' The Doors. Pohlad's film may become one of summer's cinematic highlights.