In Picturehouse Entertainment’s surreal new comedy, Paul Dano plays our socially awkward, typically millennial, mostly a total dork, lead Hank. Loveable, but a little bit tragic. Marooned on an island, and ready to off himself, he’s mercifully interrupted as a dead body washes up on the sea (Daniel Radcliffe). Manny, as he is appropriately named by Hank, turns out to be a corpse-cum-multi-purpose tool; part boat, part gun, part firelighter – a Swiss Army Knife of sorts.
The story explores the relationship between these two characters. You’re left to constantly question whether or not Hank is a little bit insane (understandably, he’s been stranded for quite some time) or whether or not the affection, care and friendship shown to Manny actually does reanimate the corpse. He’s actually disarmingly endearing – Hank has to teach him the idiosyncrasies of modern life, which only goes to highlight how ridiculous modern life is.
This Sundance winner is brought to you by The Daniels, the pair responsible for the equally bonkers DJ Snake music video for ‘Turn Down For What’. I hadn’t actually seen the music video prior to watching the film (my YouTube history is basically Katya and Naomi Campbell clips) and I have to say, the overall vibe of the film makes a lot more sense having seen it.
There’s a real vignette feel to the film, where different scenes are receive very different treatments, almost music video in style, particularly the scenes that center on the bus.
Speaking of the bus scenes, this is where we get our all too brief encounters with Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Hank’s love object. She is SO one of ours. More from her in the future please.
It’s easy to scoff at fart jokes and boy meets girl stories, but the combination of the absurd, the futile and a bromance, delivers an interesting look into mental health, the fragility of masculinity and what it means to be alone in a world of staring at mobile phones, all without the heavy handedness of a John Green novel.
It’s all really quite bizarre, but in the best possible way. And, you know what? It’s about time we saw something completely and utterly original on the big screen – Batman can
bore off.
• Swiss Army Man is out 30th September in selected cinemas.
