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Welcome to Legacy Audit: Movies, a series where I’ll be examining films released ten years ago relatively corresponding to the original week or so of their release date. The plan is to avoid covering just the movies you’d find at the top of best of the year lists, rather to cover a number of those films while also examining films that hold a unique place in the culture, and/or are made by or featuring people who have had interesting career arcs over the last ten years.
The first entry of this series falls in the middle of these two extremes. “Swiss Army Man” hit theaters on June 24, 2016, a weekend headlined by the already forgotten “Independence Day: Resurgence”. The film is operating in familiar 21st century indie film festival territory: a quirky rom-dramedy hybrid filled to the gills with pop-existentialism. Hank (played by Paul Dano), on the verge of suicide, is stopped when he notices the body of Manny (Daniel Radcliffe) washed ashore. A brief examination leads to Manny’s corpse farting, which leads to further examination from Hank that finds Manny is sentient but stunted, knowing nothing of the world around him except for being able to speak perfect English. Manny’s existence provides Hank a renewed interest in life, and the two trek through the woods in search of “home”.
Radcliffe plays Manny with an innocent charm, making him a lovable fish-out-of-water archetype, providing some much needed pathos to a film so dependent on charm in the first place. That charm really stands out because of the physical limitations posed upon him by the story, forcing him to be dead-stiff throughout the runtime.
Market/Culture Audit:
“Swiss Army Man” is a time capsule, in large part due to its tone and genre, but also because of its place in the greater film landscape in its time. Don’t get your hopes up; there’s no earth-shattering behind-the-scenes stories, but the way this film was distributed already feels obsolete. A24, the production company that handled distribution for the film has shot into the stratosphere.
By 2016, the company was attracting a cult following already, built off the backs of films like “Spring Breakers”, “The Witch”, and “Ex Machina” to name a few (Later in the year A24 released “Moonlight”, their first Best Picture winner). Fast forward ten years, and the studio has essentially shed its indie label. The studio’s most recent wide-release, “Backrooms”, has earned over $250 million worldwide to date. The studio’s first film to gross over $100 million was the Daniels’ second feature length collaboration: “Everything Everywhere All at Once”, which would go on to nab the studio its second Best Picture win.
A24 acquired “Swiss Army Man” out of the Sundance Film Festival, which itself looks quite different ten years later. “Swiss Army Man” was produced on a budget of around $3 million, making a little under $6 million at the box office. Nowadays, if this film were to be made at all, it would almost certainly be instant streaming fare, populating the tail end of the “Top 10 Movies Today” charts on x, y, or z streaming service before vanishing into the abyss.
People Audit:
Due to the film’s structure and its inherent lack of faces on screen, there are only so many people and careers to examine. However, it’s an interesting bunch. The Daniels have of course gone on to win big at the Oscars, Paul Dano has maintained his Hollywood standing as a resident weird guy, Radcliffe is now a network TV player , and Mary Elizabeth Winstead boasts a rather bleak post-2016 IMDb page.
The Daniels are the biggest winners coming out of Swiss Army Man, successfully writing a strong and funny enough story to showcase their talents for constructing lo-fi yet elaborate set-pieces while putting their talents for inventive practical effects on full display.
Paul Dano gets the job done but is handed a difficult task, as the character of Hank is truly a miserable guy to watch. Swiss Army Man is more of an interesting blip in his career, which has remained as strong post 2016 as it was prior (despite what Quentin Tarantino may tell you).
This is probably Radcliffe’s most interesting role after heading up the Harry Potter franchise for his teenage years, a standout among a number of lower budget films that failed to utilize his talents the way Swiss Army Man does. Radcliffe, due to the wealth he gained from his turn as The Boy Who Lived, has largely chosen to work in smaller, weirder modes, often assisting in getting films onscreen through the sheer force of his name. Mary Elizabeth Winstead, whose character is mostly spoken off-screen, just doesn’t seem to occupy the same cultural real estate nowadays that she did ten years ago, her most impactful screen-role post Swiss Army Man being her starring just a few months later in “10 Cloverfield Lane”.
The Daniels got their feet wet directing music videos, a pipeline that has also become relatively obsolete. “Backrooms” director Kane Parsons, as you’ve probably heard hundreds of times by now, is not only 20 (at the time of the release of “Backrooms”) but was also catapulted into Hollywood off the success of his YouTube series that shares the film’s title and serves as its source material. YouTube has removed the barrier to entry that has existed throughout the history of Hollywood for filmmakers looking to make a film with actual financing.
Music videos obviously don’t share the film industry’s corporate ladders and bureaucracy, but they do still often require some degree of knowing people in the right places. Many famous directors got their start in music videos: Spike Jonze, David Fincher, and Johnathan Glazer, a few of the most notable examples. As is the case in this film, the medium by which directors make their way into the industry often greatly impacts their storytelling techniques. Many of the best moments of “Swiss Army Man” come from material that could stand on its own as a music video.
Legacy Audit:
Now, the actual movie. The montages in particular are the strongest sequences the film has to offer, including one that boasts a quasi-digetic tongue in cheek anthem that pokes fun at the cliches the movie is taking part in.
The script is uneven, but contains flashes of splendor, particularly in its handling of the “romance” that blossoms between Hank and Manny. There is disturbing subtext; Manny is of course dead. This idea is never shut out of the picture, but is rather smartly kept on the horizon, allowing for moments of a seemingly beautiful love story, the nefariousness present enough to weird the viewer out a bit while not losing their attention.
Radcliffe’s performance as Manny is so bizarrely captivating that painfully passive Hank is in turn made wholly watchable. The two have great chemistry, required due to them sharing probably 95% of the screentime sans backup.
One set piece involving a makeshift recreation of a city bus is one of the most impressive facets of “Swiss Army Man”. The ensuing scenes, which feel very music-video inspired, are full of heart and paint a rosy and warm picture of Hank and Manny’s dynamic. The ending, without spoilers, works amazingly to subvert the tropes this film (at times painfully) traffics in.
“Swiss Army Man” is by no means a perfect film, but is a fascinating preview of the Daniels’ work to come, and inventive enough to stand out from other films of its time it may be grouped with. The duo has an untitled film slated at Universal for release in 2027, the only real public detail being the inclusion of Matt Damon as the lead.
