When Everything Everywhere All at Once became a sensation in the spring of 2022, for many viewers it seemed like the movie had come out of nowhere. But although it was their first movie to break through into the mainstream — and certainly the first to receive any kind of awards attention — EEAAO was actually Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s second feature film together as directors. The first, Swiss Army Man, was released six years earlier by a then-emerging distributor called A24. And what it lacks in Michelle Yeoh and multiverses, it makes up for in fart and boner jokes and the most bizarre role of Daniel Radcliffe’s career.
Radcliffe was in what you might call a transitional period in 2016. Six years after wrapping up his run as the titular boy wizard in the Harry Potter movies, he was doing the thing that former child stars often do: reinventing himself as an actor through a combination of serious stage work and out-there film roles. By this point, Radcliffe had already starred in a handful of horror movies. But Swiss Army Man was something different, using an unclassifiable mix of genres to tell a story that, from anything but its protagonist’s delusional perspective, is grotesque and completely horrifying.
