Swiss Army Man

Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert make their feature directing debut with this strange, surreal, wholly original and surprisingly emotional existentialist black comedy. Paul Dano stars as Hank, a suicidal castaway who gets a new lease on life when he befriends Manny (Daniel Radcliffe), a flatulent corpse who washes up on the beach  Manny possesses inexplicable powers—his powerful farts allow Hank to ride him off the island like a Jet Ski, and his rotting body serves as a water purifier—and the two men form an intense bond that might only exist in Hank’s malnourished and deteriorating brain. Dano was born and bred for this sort of cuddly dementia, while Radcliffe has never been better, and the two actors forge a great onscreen rapport. Kwan and Scheinert can’t quite sustain the invention and energy all the way to the end, but most of Swiss Army Man is dazzlingly warped stuff. D.B.