Daniel Kwan, working with Daniel Scheinert, finds tenderness in bodily embarrassment. We like their willingness to take a ridiculous premise seriously, though Swiss Army Man shows how readily the explanations can go on too long.
Fi1m perspective
A flatulent corpse is useful company in Swiss Army Man (2016), and Daniel Kwan is prepared to take that company seriously. Writing and directing with Daniel Scheinert, he turns an absurd survival comedy into a friendship between a man and a corpse. The bodily embarrassment gives them something to explore beyond the next joke: what their characters might find worth loving in themselves. We rate the film for that tenderness, with a reservation about how much explaining comes with it.
The partnership began with shorts in 2009 and music videos from 2010, before Swiss Army Man became their feature debut. The body-based humour was already there in the music video Turn Down for What (2014). Practical effects recur in their work, alongside the physical jokes. Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) moves to alternate selves and a multiverse, with regret and connection among its concerns. The premise grows larger, but the interest in people struggling to live with themselves remains recognisable.
This is shared work, and there is little value in pretending we can assign each joke or tender moment to one Daniel. Cinematographer Larkin Seiple and production designer Jason Kisvarday are collaborators on both features. In Swiss Army Man, Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe give the strange premise something the writing cannot supply by itself: affection that feels convincing. We were moved by their friendship because the actors make the pair worth staying with, however ridiculous their circumstances.
The weakness is plainest in the conversations. Swiss Army Man repeatedly explains feelings Dano and Radcliffe have already made clear, slowing a comedy whose bodily jokes otherwise give it purpose. Not every earnest exchange deserves the time it gets, and the good intentions do not make those stretches less tiring. The affection survives, but we would like Kwan and Scheinert to trust their performers enough to leave more unsaid. Start with Swiss Army Man, provided a useful corpse sounds like tolerable company for an evening.
Biography
Daniel Kwan is an American filmmaker and one half of the directing duo known as Daniels, alongside Daniel Scheinert. He was born on 10 February 1988 in Westborough, Massachusetts. Kwan began his career directing music videos.
Kwan co-wrote and co-directed the feature films Swiss Army Man (2016) and Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022). He has also directed episodes of the series Legion (2017) and Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens (2020), and an episode of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew (2024). Kwan served as a producer on the documentary The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist (2026).
