Punch Drunk Love

TIFF [2002]

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(USA 2002)
Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Cast: Adam Sandler, Emily Watson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Luis Guzman

Yet another stab by a wise-guy comedian to go “legit”? The latest study in SoCal Quirkology by the director of “Magnolia” and “Boogie Nights”? A bizarro “Mr. Deeds” for the art-house crowd? “Punch Drunk Love” is all these things, and more. Or maybe less. Moviegoers will definitely be polarized on this stylized oddity when it opens in October from Columbia Pictures.

Barry Egan (Sandler), is an awkward, thirtysomething loner who works in a novelty factory and avoids most human interaction beyond the mundane orders of his boss (Guzman), and the seemingly endless phone badgering from his seven sisters. Instead, he obsesses over an Air Miles contest offered by Healthy Choice pudding, in which he’s convinced an error in product labeling will make him the big winner (a subplot apparently based on an actual event). When Barry reaches out to his family for some psychiatric advice (too bad his brother-in-law is a dentist), he is rewarded with more sibling humiliation, and risks a call to a phone sex line for the comfort of an anonymous, non-judgmental voice. The faceless girl on the other end seems very nice at first, but soon, she’s the one calling Barry and begging for money. When Barry refuses to help her (he’d like to, but can’t afford it), her malignant, low-life brother Dean (Hoffman) decides to use Barry’s confidential info and credit card number for extortion and send three thugs to beat the message into him. Barry agrees to be fixed up with shy Lena (Watson), a sister’s coworker, and their slow-building romance is shell-shocked by another attack from the Dean’s droogs, which nearly gets the girl killed. Barry realizes he’ll lose everything, including Lena, unless he confesses and musters up the courage to strike back, but will he sink to Dean’s level?

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By now, most of you are probably familiar with this title as the one in which the popular star of the goofball hits “Happy Gilmore” and ‘The Wedding Singer” goes all dramatic on us. But this alleged “legit” vehicle for Sandler isn’t so much a radical stretch, at first glance, it seems a slightly skewed riff on what has become the standard Sandler formula: a sweet dysfunctional man-boy with anger-management problems meets an equally sweet girl and wins her heart after defeating a smug bully and in the end, gets to maintain his noncommittal lifestyle. If this one had been co-written by Sandler and directed by one of his pals, there’d be more slapstick, less surrealism (well, the climax of “Little Nicky” was pretty surreal), a few classic rock tunes, and maybe even an ironic cameo thrown in for good measure, but the basic scenario itself could have still played out as is.

But as conceived by the talented Anderson, “Punch Drunk Love” takes place squarely in the Fringe zone of his favorite location, the San Fernando Valley, where even the drabbest of barren industrial parks is idealized with the geometric, muddy elegance of an Edward Hopper painting (stunning work from Anderson's fave DOP Robert Elswitt). There’s little in the way of overt beauty in this lens-flared world beyond Watson’s glassy elfin pout--even Barry’s short trip to Hawaii takes him to a tacky tourist trap as unglamorous and overcast as the Atlantic City of Anderson’s “Hard Eight”.

It’s the same place where “Magnolia”s rough magic can be experienced by the receptive mind—there’s nothing here quite as outrageous as that film’s climactic rain of frogs, but a violent car flip out of a Bruckheimer blockbuster, followed by a battered Hammond Organ being dropped anonymously at the foot of Egan’s driveway certainly qualify (adding another oddball element to a story that’s more about motif than plot point).

Cotton candy transitions, Jon Brion’s dreamy carnival score (which heavily samples Shelly Duvall, as Olive Oyl, crooning the Nilsson ditty “He Needs Me” from Robert Altman’s “Popeye”!), and an ambience of impending “something” will keep most viewers on edge and prepped for a payoff that never quite materializes. At only 91 minutes in length, there isn’t time for much, and Anderson’s quiet fable of misfit romance might strike some as a small and somewhat throwaway indulgence after two sprawling, ambitious ensemble dramas. Nonetheless, it worked for me, even if I never really connected with the romance due to the Anderson’s arch, detached tone.

At the risk of having to surrender my “cineaste” membership card, I’ll admit that over time, Sandler has sorta grown on me, dare-I-say that he can be charismatic, and even endearing? Sandler has obviously learned from the past gambles of Bill Murray (who failed to convince in “The Razor’s Edge”) and Steve Martin (who initially stumbled with “Pennies From Heaven”) that it’s sometimes best to slowly escort the audience along with you when you’re braving new terrain, taking careful baby steps. As Barry, he is required to harness the same awe-shucks demeanour and hot-tempered outbursts that have made up the bulk of his previous performances, but Anderson wrings a dangerous edge out of him here that hints at the potential for more complex work to come. As for the rumoured Oscar buzz over “Punch Drunk”—fat chance, just ask Jim Carrey.

- Robert L

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