Daniel Radcliffe has had one of the funniest careers in Hollywood.
That is a compliment! Most actors who spend a decade starring in one of the biggest franchises ever made tend to devote the next decade convincing everyone they can be serious artists (no shade, Robert Pattinson) or viable action stars (a little shade, Taylor Lautner.) Radcliffe shrugged off the obvious and instead, over the past decade, chose to play a guy with guns bolted to his hands, “Weird” Al Yankovic, a hot wannabe detective with horns, and a farting corpse.
Whether it’s the conscious rejection of the movie-star treadmill or not, Radcliffe has spent the post-Harry Potter years booking quirky projects like he’s the kid from Blank Check at a toy store. He’s currently great on Reggie Dinkins, playing a bumbling documentary filmmaker and the straight man to Tracy Morgan’s chaos, and has reportedly dazzled in the interactive Broadway hit, Every Brilliant Thing. But I have come to adore Radcliffe as an actor willing to weaponize audience expectations for him as a nice, sensible guy. Which brings me back to that farting corpse.
Swiss Army Man, streaming free on Pluto TV, remains the weirdest thing Radcliffe has ever done. The movie arrived at Sundance in 2016 from directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, years before they became Oscar-winning household names thanks to Everything Everywhere All at Once. Back then they were mostly known for music videos and internet-famous oddities. Swiss Army Man felt like a movie designed to answer the question: What if those guys got enough money to realize every dumb joke they ever made while stoned?
The setup remains wonderfully stupid: Paul Dano (The Batman, There Will Be Blood) plays Hank, a man stranded alone in the wilderness who is moments away from ending his life when he spots a body washed ashore. The corpse, Manny, is played by Radcliffe. Hank soon discovers Manny is the most useful dead person one could possibly encounter. He can dispense fresh water. He can chop wood. He can fire objects like a cannon. Most importantly, he can fart with enough force to propel a grown man across the ocean. Wilson from Cast Away weeps.
The image of Dano riding a fart-powered Daniel Radcliffe across the waves became the movie’s calling card, but probably overshadowed what the Daniels actually accomplished by the end of Swiss Army Man. Yes, the movie is packed with fart jokes, boners, barf, and an accouterment of other bodily functions serving as survival tactics. But the Daniels also made a surprisingly earnest movie about loneliness and romantic obsession. There’s a mental health crisis at the center of this movie, and Dano and Radcliffe’s willingness to play the whole thing straight to the end — which still involves farts, even at its most serious — is a triumph that would absolutely never get awarded at the Oscars.
I was at the Sundance premiere of Swiss Army Man back in 2016, where the movie instantly split the room into factions. Before the lights went down, the room hummed with Radcliffe fans who showed up expecting a quirky indie starring their guy. There were also people who started heading for the exits almost immediately once it became clear they were about to spend 90 minutes watching a corpse fart its way through an existential crisis. Everyone else was laughing too hard to care what the haters mumbled on the way out.
Swiss Army Man may not fill your living room the way it commanded a 1,200-seat Sundance premiere. It’s messy and occasionally repetitive. It’s a little twee in that pre-Trump pop culture era. Andy Hull and Robert McDowell’s guttural human-voiced soundtrack may not click with the symphonic John Williams diehard out there. But almost nobody makes movies this committed to a bit. Radcliffe throws himself into the role with the physical commitment of Charlie Chaplin.
For fans of Everything Everywhere All at Once, there’s really no excuse: Swiss Army Man is a key link in the sincerity-meets-absurdity career path of the Daniels (who are next set to do a time-jumping odyssey with Matt Damon). You can also see the blueprint for the career Radcliffe has built ever since: a long series of projects that seem designed to set new boundaries for how weird a name star can get without breaking a career. It rips (farts).
Swiss Army Man is currently streaming for free with ads on Pluto TV.
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