Review: Punch-Drunk Love

Barry (Adam Sandler) has issues. Constantly berated by his flock of sisters (one played by Mary Lynn Rajskub) who he just wants to leave him alone, crying at random moments, even admitting ‘I don’t like myself sometimes’. Working at a crummy toiletries company probably does that to you sometimes. He also has barely concealed rage issues (that he sometimes fails to conceal when he just can’t take his sisters’ crap anymore), and has recently found himself the victim of a scheme involving a phone sex worker, whose boss (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is none too pleased. But Barry is also a lost soul, and one day he happens upon another odd duck, Lena (Emily Watson), who seems to get Barry like no other. Their ‘dirty talk’, for instance, is just plain bizarre (‘I'm looking at your face and I just want to smash it. I just want to fucking smash  it with a sledgehammer and squeeze it. You're so pretty’). But with all the other chaos in his life, can Barry get it together to be with the girl he loves?

 

Rightly regarded as one of Adam Sandler’s best and most ambitious films, this 2002 unorthodox romance from writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson (“Hard Eight”, “Boogie Nights”, “Magnolia”, “There Will Be Blood”) takes the standard passive-aggressive/suppressed rage Sandler persona and puts it into an unusual and more meaningful context. Sandler’s uncomfortable performance is genuinely solid, and no one else could’ve played this part. Like “Funny People”, he was born for the role, and it’s a shame that he gives the impression of someone afraid or disinterested in stretching himself very often. Watching this and “Funny People” really does make you angry with him, he has so much untapped potential. The scenes where his family pretty much insult and berate him, are particularly amusing (‘C’mon gay boy, it’s time to eat!’) in a film that is neither comedy nor drama. Mary Lynn Rajskub is pitch-perfect as Sandler’s sister, as are the other actors playing his family. Philip Seymour Hoffman only has a couple of scenes, but his second one is the best scene in the whole film.

 

Emily Watson is probably the film’s only drawback, as she has a tendency to whisper most of her dialogue. Speak up, sweetie. Actually, the other flaw with the film is the irritating abundance of lens flares employed by Anderson and cinematographer Robert Elswit (“Boogie Nights”, “Hard Eight”, “Tomorrow Never Dies”, “Magnolia”). I’m not sure if this was the film to really start the trend, but they are a permanent stain on a film and hard to ignore.

 

It’s a really unusual and somewhat surreal love story, and an intensely nervous experience as we fully expect Sandler to eventually blow up, but it’s kinda sweet in its own off-putting, suppressed rage kinda way. The music score by Jon Brion (who broke up with Rajskub before filming began. #Awkward) especially aids in the nervous tension, as it is a deliberately irritating (and therefore effective) score.

 

I would’ve loved to have been in the meeting where the idea for this film was pitched (How is this not a Charlie Kaufman film?). Nothing about it should have worked, and yet it does, proving that a love story can survive or maybe even be enhanced by having two oddball protagonists (they certainly help make the romantic formula seem a little more unpredictable). Everyone deserves to find love, even a Rageaholic like Barry.

 

This really good, but really strange film is the most uncomfortable experience you’ll ever enjoy. It also has the most unusual ‘guy chases down girl to say he’s sorry and win her back’ scene you’re ever going to see. That speech is so wrong and yet so very, very right.

 

Rating: B