Swiss Army Man screened at Sundance to mixed reviews. It stars Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe as two guys stranded on an island, except one of them is dead. People who love it, really love it; people who hate it can’t seem to get past the fart jokes. The first trailer for Swiss Army Man debuted yesterday, and it leads with one of those fart jokes, which is A+ in my book. DanRad plays the corpse, and based on the trailer it looks like a lot of the jokes in the movie derive from all the disgusting things corpses do as they decompose. I don’t think this will be for the squeamish.
This movie looks RIDICULOUS, but at the same time, Paul Dano can sell just about anything, so I’m totally buying the vibe of hope and redemption in the trailer. It sort of looks like Castaway, if Wilson was a dead guy instead of a volleyball. And also if the dead guy was used as a combination slingshot, rocket launcher, body pillow—all the different uses for the corpse is undoubtedly where the title comes from. But let’s be honest. If you’re at all open to this type of bonkers movie, the moment Swiss Army Man won you over is when Paul Dano rides DanRad’s corpse across the sea like Poseidon on a majestic dolphin-steed.
