I have never before seen a movie whose fart jokes weren't warranted for me to turn it off. Vulgarity does not bother me, mind you, I'm a film major, and the story of my life leans farther toward an R-rating than a PG one. But I tend to shy away from comedies, particularly slapstick, because the farther forward film goes, the more and more Adam Sandler slapsticks we receive, and while everyone is entitled to their taste in film, the loud, obnoxious humor of the once great Billy Madison just simply is no longer for me. I personally consider the real-world comedy of Adam McKay to be genius, and I'm a sucker for a buddy cop flick (See: "The Other Guys," "21/22 Jump Street," or more recently, Shane Black's "The Nice Guys"). As far as the genre of hilarity goes, however, nothing appeals to me more than the dark comedy. Some of the most memorable films in history ("Fight Club," "Doctor Strangelove," "Fargo," and of course, "Pulp Fiction") all achieve their level of acclaim by making light of one of the most universal of realities - that nothing is funnier than the truth.
This truth is why I'm writing about the most original movie I've seen this year, and maybe any year: the film made by Daniels, "Swiss Army Man." Audiences and critics alike tend to agree that pure, distinct stories are hard to come by these days. Everything is a sequel or a prequel or a reboot, or at least derives from something we've all seen time and time again. That simply isn't the case with A24's newest pseudo-indie dramedy, starring Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe.
A beautiful thing about the dark comedy genre is that it can hardly be considered its own "genre." It is really a matter of taking standard conventions of filmmaking and applying a familiar sense of the real world to it, not only making it rich and relatable, but hilarious, as well. "Swiss Army Man," when skin deep, is not a foreign tale. I've seen "Castaway" before, but the movie is hardly about being lost; on the contrary, it is actually about being found. Paul Dano plays Hank, who for undeclared reasons has been stranded on a small, desert island for an undisclosed period of time. The movie opens with a bearded, starved Dano with a makeshift noose around his neck. Teetering over the edge of a cooler, he sings an inaudible song as he spots a body washed ashore. From that moment on, the stranded soul is shown what being lost forever really means, and throughout the film, the very nature of society is questioned by a dead man.
Daniel Radcliffe plays Manny, a dead man who, through no explanation, interacts with our hero and even saves his life. Picture a child who's just discovered the question "Why?" and place that into a cold, limp, dead former wizard. What would normally break cultural norm back in society was no barricade to Manny, whose incessant farts slowly but surely lead Hank to the realization that he was more lost back home than he could ever be anywhere else. As Manny absorbs the do's and don't's of the real world, he questions their purpose and place. Why do we fear? Why do we love? Why can't we fart in public? By the end of the film, the message is clear; society makes you more dead than being dead does. I've seen films that serve this form of assurance ("Forrest Gump," "Calvary," "Seven Psychopaths"), but no film I have ever seen before has ever been more life-affirming. And it does this with farts.
If you haven't seen it yet, "Swiss Army Man" stars Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe, playing in select theaters.
*Disclaimer: two old ladies walked out around the fourth boner joke, so if you don't think the movie is for you, the movie isn't for you...Yeah.
