There Will Be Love

 

Through the years, I've yet to find another comic star who arouses such disdain as Adam Sandler. Critics, friends, record store clerks, audiences who flock to Johy Sayles movies (I'm generalizing here, but I've been defending him for so long), loathe Adam Sandler. Who else induces such contempt? Maybe very early Jim Carrey (but by The Truman Show and clearly Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind he was rightfully embraced) and, of course, Jerry Lewis, who thankfully has finally gotten his due, even outside of France. (In fact, I'm surprised the French haven't taken to Sandler -- they so love explicating our Ugly Americans.) But Sandler -- he's a special case. Think of what many deem him -- lazy, homophobic, frat boy humor, contributing to the dumbing down of cinema, and America --  and though many of his pictures are indeed, lackluster and stupid, the stamp on the comic isn't entirely fair.

He's also capable of sensitive, inspired moments that show unique talent and depth. Those critics and certain Sandler-haters might change their tune with Judd Apatow's newest Sandler defense, Funny People, and that will bother me. Because Sandler already revealed his abilities in the underrated Spanglish (directed by James L. Brooks) and most especially in one of the most romantic movies of the last near ten years --Paul Thomas Anderson’s exalting, superb, poetic Punch-Drunk Love.

Punch-Drunk Love -- I was baffled by the picture’s lukewarm to mixed reception upon release (in 2002), and wonder why it remains misunderstood to this day. I know that even many Anderson lovers scratched their heads over the movie’s lack of epic heft, extra multiple storylines and large scale speeches. (Many did the same with There Will Be Blood, another movie that features a strong central performance and person who seems to polarize people -- the brilliant Daniel Day Lewis). And then there was that Adam Sandler bias -- the knee jerk and unfair question of, why? Why, Happy Gilmore? (And to clarify, I like Happy Gilmore). 

And I don’t just like Punch-Drunk Love, I love Punch-Drunk Love. I love it with an odd fear, and with my entire body, like how I feel when an anxiety attack has passed and my brain is still tripping from the surge of adrenaline --  when birds and trees and cab drivers suddenly gain a glowing, but warped beauty. An extraordinary, unique picture that manages to simultaneously subvert and showcase the Sandler persona beautifully, while maintaining  Anderson’s singular éclat as a filmmaker. Anderson’s masterpiece, There Will Be Blood has proven the director can handle multiple genres, but he had revealed his versatility earlier with Punch-Drunk. No long Anderson, extraordinary monologues, no expertly interwoven subplots, no drugs, Punch-Drunk Love was a film we'd not only never seen Anderson create, it was (and still is) a movie we’d never seen anywhere.  And no matter how you feel about Sandler, he leaves a lasting impression as lonely, alienated Barry Egan, the Californian businessman and put-upon brother who falls for the ever-patient Emily Watson.

To explain the off-kilter, dissonant power of Punch-Drunk Love (aided by Jon Brion’s compelling, lovely, yet anxiety ridden score) is nearly impossible: So alien yet incredibly human is the movie, it frequently puts the viewer right into the uncomfortable, anxious mind of Barry  -- an unsettling, but to many, familiar place to be. We have no idea what will happen next (but with delight, and sometimes heartbreak). Sandler, who had displayed talent before this, has never been so fantastically abstract, utilizing his scared-yet-angry-but-violent-little-boy persona with a sublime darkness. This may sound ridiculous to some but Anderson's influence on Sandler is somewhat akin to Alfred Hitchcock's use of Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo (who had certainly played darker characters before Vertigo) --  pulling the dusky and misunderstood out of a popular American movie star and layering him with wounded depth. He did the same with Tom Cruise's transcendent performance in Magnolia ("I will drop kick those fucking dogs" is almost a Barry Egan moment).

Sandler’s verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown, yet deeply romantic Barry is so powerfully beguiling that when Anderson films his journey to Hawaii, it's a moment that's so overwhelmingly romantic, so remarkably special, it both swoons with gorgeousness and rattles your nerves -- all those deep seated raw emotions bubbling to the surface. Tuned to Shelley Duvall singing Harry Nilsson's enchanting and offbeat "He Needs Me" from Robert Altman's great, underrated Popeye (so spot on, bullseye perfect), Barry moves from work to airport to cab to phone booth, where he finally takes a stand against his sister (“You’re killing me. You're killing me with the way you are towards me. All I want is the fucking number and that should be goddamn good enough for you!"), and then reaches Lena. In a beautiful touch, when she answers, the payphone lights up to her voice.  A musical sequence that plays like Anderson’s twisted version of the Arthur Freed unit (Barry’s Technicolor blue suit alone) it’s a masterful ode to vulnerability, fear and power, and something that seems impossible to replicate -- stamped with all that live wire, off the cliff Anderson energy and influence.

This might be why some respond so strongly to the picture, or just cannot wrap their heart or mind around the thing. I'm not certain. There are those who don't understand a woman loving her man so much that she wants to "chew" his eyeballs, and there are those who do. Love can make you do and say crazy things  --  and can become so overwhelming  that when it enters the realms of violent thought -- positive or negative -- it isn’t so strange, to you.  Anderson clearly digs this dynamic so, if letting your guard down leads to deception, you might kill that imposter in a rage a la There Will Be Blood’s Daniel Plainview, who dumps his faux brother into a shallow grave and shovels dirt over his dead body (a scene I completely comprehend). And if finally sleeping with your beloved makes you realize the strength of your love so much, you can easily confess: “I'm lookin' at your face and I just wanna smash it. I just wanna fuckin' smash it with a sledgehammer and squeeze it. You're so pretty.” Well, that’s just bloody fucking brilliant beautiful.

Comments

[COOP]

Another spot-on analysis of a GREAT film, by far PTA's best. Love this one so much. Sandler's slow burn and freakout at his sister's house is an amazing piece of acting.

[Mr. Peel]

I love early Sandler--BILLY MADISON, HAPPY GILMORE--it's in recent years that he's kind of lost me. But I love PUNCH DRUNK LOVE too. You can't really explain it, just like you can't explain those ultra-painful feelings that it's about, the ones that make you want to scream, "Why? WHY???!!!" in the face of the woman you want to say everything to about how much you love them. And I love this piece. I love it so much that it makes me want to pick up the computer and smash it against the wall so I never have to read it again, let alone ever read anything else on Sunset Gun. That's how good a writer Kim Morgan is. But I will gladly watch POPEYE any day of the week for just the joy of it.

[Encore Entertainment]

I am anticipating this. I really am. When I was young I loved all the crappy Sandler films, not anymore...but still.

[Ryan Kelly]

I was just remarking to a friend that this is probably P.T. Anderson's best movie; the only movie where he really acknowledges that he is very distant from humanity, though unlike his idol Kubrick, I don't think he understands people too terribly well. "Punch-Drunk Love" is great because it's about that alienation. PDL is also the closest he's come to approximating his other idol, Altman, I think (especially "Brewster McCloud" and "Popeye"). I still like his other works very much, but in "Magnolia" and especially "There Will Be Blood" I think he bites off a little more than he can chew.

But this is a beautiful piece that very perceptively discusses this most under-rated work. Great work here as always.

[jim emerson]

I'll weigh in because I'm one of those people who looks right through Sandler. There's just nobody there. I liked this movie a lot, but you remind me I need to see this again. All I remember is feeling that Mary Lynn Rajskub blew everyone else off the screen -- without trying. She cut through the movie's twee aspects and seemed so much more in touch with the source of the movie's pain and neuroticism. Sandler, as usual, doesn't interest me because (like Cruise, even in "Magnolia") he always strikes me as a slight, synthetic, cartoony presence. For me, PTA peaked with "Hard Eight" and "Boogie Nights," and has become increasingly stilted and mannered since...

[Flickhead]

I'm still recovering from "Click".

[robot hero]

After passing over Punch Drunk Love for a long time because I wasn't a fan of Sandler, I finally decided to watch it about a year ago. I think I can safely say that I love it. It's so bizarre, charming and romantic all at once. Great post, I've linked it to a few friends who could use some convincing regarding Punch Drunk Love.

Incidentally, I just saw a Jon Brion gig this past weekend here in San Francisco, and he played Here We Go, which is on the Punch Drunk Love soundtrack. Very cool.

[my first farce]

I have to disagree with Ryan Kelly (comment above) - if anything, PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE demonstrates how well Anderson understands people.

I love this movie, and ever since watching it for the first time, I have had an unconditional love for Adam Sandler. Too bad it makes me watch reruns of CHUCK AND LARRY.

[AKA]

Oh hell yes. I remember going to the press screening of PUNCH DRUNK LOVE knowing nothing other than "The new Paul Thomas Anderson movie with Adam Sandler" and I came out thinking: "That's every bit as good as BOOGIE NIGHTS and HARD EIGHT and far better than MAGNOLIA."

And I'll sit through absolutely any Sandler flick, no matter how bad (I'm looking at you, THE WATERBOY) and I'll still smile or laugh enough to make it worthwhile.

[George Schmidt]

Great job as usual Kim!
The scene where Sandler wields the piece of lumber on his tormentors is when the film totally hooked me in and felt, "Fuck yeah, that's what I would've done" (I actually recall making a fist and felt a lump in my throat when I first saw this in the theater); here's my review for you:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0272338/usercomments-24

[Joe Valdez]

I admired PUNCHDRUNK LOVE quite a bit, as I have everything Paul Thomas Anderson has shot. "Off-kilter, dissonant power" indeed. Hey, you can write!

I don't think much of Adam Sandler, but agree he gets a bad rap. Sandler hate is relative to how many tickets he's sold. David Spade or Rob Schneider get a pass because their film careers were not very successful. Of the three, Sandler is not only the wealthiest, but also the better performer.

[Ed Cohen]

Excellent write up of a movie that just doesn't get enough attention -- and mainly because of Sandler's reputation.

Now go ahead and try to resuscitate "The Wedding Singer". Of course, I like that one as well -- where else can you witness great performances by Steve Buscemi and Billy Idol in the same movie?!

Thanks for the great work.

[EDJ]

I've always felt that Punch Drunk Love was Anderson's Hall Ashby movie, a deeply empathic look at an outsider, in the same way that Hard Eight was his Scorsese film and Magnolia his Altman.

My only problem with it has always been the score. While it's true it matches it perfectly, and it's nigh impossible for me to think of anything else it always felt a bit like cheating. The movies tense enough as it is.

I don't think Sandler get's enough credit for how weird his movies are. I mean look at The Waterboy where he's dressed in footy pajamas in his shitty trailer, hanging out with his Satan obsessed Momma, as he makes lisping stuttering calls to a Wrestler named Capt. Insano.

That's a half step away from Gummo. And that's not some weird little toss of project either that's his first crossover hit.

[YLB]

Heh. Punch Drunk Love is a very unconventional love story and the only kind I can really stand these days.

I mean it is a sort of weird male fantasy in a way. A totally geeky guy running a dorky small business gets pursued by a woman seemingly way out of his league. Yes, too good to be true. Love is strange indeed.

This punch drunk shambling mess of movie is certainly much more interesting than the saccharine sweet love stories we were all raised on.