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The surreal comedy "Swiss Army Man" is unlike anything else in theaters today — and not just because Daniel Radcliffe plays a flatulent corpse.
It's Radcliffe's body, washed up on the shore of a deserted Pacific island, that the shipwrecked Hank (Paul Dano) sees just as he's about to hang himself. The discovery gives Hank hope, especially when he realizes the corpse's gastric chemistry is creating farts powerful enough to let him ride the body like a jetski to the mainland.
Still lost in the woods, Hank finds the body can talk and function as an all-purpose tool — shaving kit, water fountain, log splitter and so on. Manny (as Hank calls the body) has no memory and asks Hank about the wider world, leading to discussions about life, fear and Hank's unrequited crush on Sarah (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a woman he sees on the bus.
Writer-directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, a music-video team known collectively as Daniels, take this odd premise into gloriously eccentric visuals that evoke the French filmmaker Michel Gondry's weirder work.
Dano is heartbreaking as the lonely Hank, but Radcliffe gives an amazing physical performance as a most energetic corpse. The Daniels' underlying theme, that holding in one's emotions and holding in one's farts are both socially preferred but ultimately unhealthy, is thoughtfully presented before the rushed finale.
'Swiss Army Man'
Opens Friday, July 1, at the Tower Theatre; rated R for language and sexual material; 97 minutes.