Daniel Scheinert makes bodily embarrassment the basis of comedy and unexpected tenderness. We like his willingness to stay with an absurd idea, especially alongside Daniel Kwan, though the dialogue can explain feelings the actors have already made clear.
Fi1m perspective
A flatulent corpse is a workable joke; making us care about its friendship with a stranded man takes rather more patience. In Swiss Army Man (2016), Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan give that friendship enough attention for the joke to last. We were touched by the affection between the two, because Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe make it clear without needing all the earnest conversation supplied for them. Scheinert is worth watching for that willingness to take an absurd situation seriously. He can also be tiresomely insistent about explaining why it matters.
Scheinert and Kwan, working together as Daniels, came to features through shorts and music videos, including Turn Down for What (2014). Their feature debut, Swiss Army Man, carries that background into its practical effects and physical gags. Scheinert then directed the solo black comedy The Death of Dick Long (2019), set in Alabama and concerned with secrecy and small-town life. He returned to co-writing and co-directing with Kwan on Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), taking their taste for surreal stories into a multiverse.
The useful thing about the partnership is its affection for bodies that behave in ways people would prefer not to discuss. In Swiss Army Man, Scheinert and Kwan do not merely keep finding uses for the corpse; they build a comedy around the possibility that another person might accept what embarrasses us. Dano and Radcliffe give the film enough tenderness to make that idea persuasive. The writing is less trusting: conversations go on after the performances have done the work, and a good physical joke would be welcome.
We would be wary of treating the solo The Death of Dick Long as a key to which Daniel contributes what. The work with Kwan gives us no reason to separate the jokes from the feelings, and Swiss Army Man is at its most persuasive when its actors can carry both at once. What we would like from Scheinert is more confidence in those performances, and less explanation on their behalf. Start with the debut, if the corpse has not already settled the matter.
Biography
Daniel Scheinert (born 7 June 1987) is an American film director and screenwriter. He forms one half of the directing and writing duo known as Daniels with Daniel Kwan.
Scheinert and Kwan met while studying at Emerson College in Boston and began their careers directing music videos. Their feature debut was the co-written and co-directed Swiss Army Man (2016). Scheinert directed the solo feature The Death of Dick Long (2019). The pair also co-wrote and co-directed Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022).
Scheinert was born in Birmingham, Alabama.
