A lonely man finds love during a dark time in his life,
involving extortion and copious amounts of pudding. COMEDY/DRAMA
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Punch-Drunk Love (2002)Written and Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring Adam Sandler, Emily Watson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Luis Guzmán, Mary Lynn Rajskub |
Punch-Drunk Love is the film where Paul Thomas Anderson accomplished the impossible. He got Adam Sandler to act. This film is a story about a depressed, timid man who falls in love and finds himself stronger than ever before. It's touching and humanizing, and it's all owed to the incredible performance that Sandler gives as Barry Egan. His chemistry with Emily Watson is fantastic and the story is so bizarre yet engaging. You get lost in it almost immediately.
Barry Egan is a lonely, troubled man with a domineering family who see him as a punching bag. He owns his own business and makes the mistake of calling a phone sex line and ends up threatened by a crooked mattress salesman (Philip Seymour Hoffman, in a brief but all-too memorable performance). But then he meets Lena (Watson), who finds him charming and enjoys his company. Love blossoms quickly, and suddenly Barry finds life is worth living, and he may not be able to fight for himself, but he finds the strength to fight for her. It's one of the best relationship movies I've ever seen, as the whole film treats love as finding someone you enjoy spending time with, and who enjoys spending time with you. Punch-Drunk Love should've netted Sandler an Oscar nomination, and Paul Thomas Anderson remains one of the most diverse filmmakers in the industry. Every film he makes is a snowflake, unique among the rest. He brings out the best in his actors, summoning up courage even they didn't know they had inside of them. This film is funny, upsetting, and dramatic, and I can't believe it isn't more well-known. |
This is PTA’s 4th film and quite possibly his strangest. Barry Egan (Adam Sandler) is glaringly odd, but just like most of Paul’s characters, we are captivated by that oddness. Sandler gives what I see as by far his best performance ever, with the likes of Emily Watson and PTA go-to, Philip Seymour Hoffman, keeping the bar very high as well. The film made no money when it came out, but it has found a second life just like most of Paul’s work.
Barry is a single dude who sells novelty items for a living, and we see him encounter some very random shit right at the beginning of the film. It only gets stranger as he meets Lena (Watson) because one of his seven annoying sisters sets it up for them to run into each other while he is at work. Barry deals with the stress of his sisters by trying to find a loophole in a Healthy Choice promotion by buying insane amounts of pudding, and calling a sex line operator, but that only makes things even more complicated as his feelings rise for Lena. It sounds like chaos, because it is and I love it. For me, this is just another extraordinary film made by the great PTA. |