Dead man farting

'Swiss Army Man' mines the scatological for the profound

“Swiss Army Man” is a wonderfully implausible gem of a movie with a premise so goddamn crazy it should have no business taking itself seriously. But writer-directors Dan Kwan Daniel Scheinert (credited as “Daniels”), through sheer audacity, force you to suspend disbelief and give yourself over to their vision—a vision that centers on a talking, farting, dead guy with a GPS-equipped boner.

We meet the bedraggled Hank (Paul Dano) just as he’s about to kill himself after being stranded for some time on a deserted island. In the midst of the coup de grace, he notices a body (Daniel Radcliffe) has washed up on the shore. Despite being quite deceased, the corpse farts with freakish regularity, interrupting Hank’s final moment of reflection and causing him to put his suicide on hold.

Hank approaches the body and quickly strikes up a one-sided rapport, naming him Manny. In a MacGuyverish burst of inspiration, Hank rides the flatulent corpse to the mainland like a gaseous jet ski.

In the wilderness far from civilization, Hank discovers that not only does Manny talk, he also dispenses life-saving water from his lungs like a fountain, fart-vaults over obstacles, and can be Heimlich-Maneuvered into shooting various projectiles—like rocks and grappling hooks—from his mouth to get out of tight spots. He’s a Swiss Army Man.

Having no memory of his life, Manny is full of the simple, often existential questions that Hank clearly has problems reconciling for himself. The only thing we really know about Hank’s past is that he has a creepy-sad crush on a woman (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) he espied on the bus. Using a picture of her on his dying cell phone as bait, Hank tricks Manny into staying “alive” by teaching him about the things he’s forgotten in death.

The sweet sincerity of Hank and Manny’s relationship contrasts with the film’s inherent absurdity. Really, this should not work as well as it does. It’s like Charlie Kaufman at his most introspective mixed with shades of Don Hertzfeldt’s “It’s Such a Beautiful Day,” yet weirder and funnier. The “Daniels,” whose short film work already hinted such fanciful, slapstick highs, improbably nail the wry yet mournful tone with heartfelt confidence.

That directorial self-assurance is perfectly realized by the commitment of Dano and Radcliffe’s performances. Their Homeric (and somewhat homoerotic) fish-out-of-water journey becomes a dream-like reconciliation of an adulthood that they both clearly gave up on. As funny as it is, the sophomoric humor—explosive farts, divining rod erections, meditations on what it’s like to become poop, and Oedipal masturbation jokes—mirrors the deeply human concerns at the story’s core, while inventing tropes and emotional landscapes that most films would never dream of. It relishes in keeping the audience unsure of what is real or fantasy. Dano and Radcliffe are the heart and soul of it all, giving career-defining turns that are simply unforgettable.

“Swiss Army Man” is crass, juvenile, scatological and really weird. It’s also funny, moving and idiosyncratic. There’s a lot of room for polarization among those who might only see the surface. But with the right kind of eyes you will find the most unlikely great movie of 2016.

"Swiss Army Man" is now playing at Circle Cinema. 

For more from Joe, read his review of Steven Spielberg's latest, "The BFG."