Review

Review Date: 27-October-02
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Juicy

Punch-Drunk Love (2002)

I have a confession to make. Even before I saw Punch-Drunk Love, I had already written the final line of my review, which ran thus: "Folks, we missed out on Aristotle, Da Vinci, Mozart, and Einstein; for goodness' sake, don't miss out on Punch-Drunk Love, or any of Paul Thomas Anderson's movies — it may be your only chance to bask in the glowing flame of extant genius."

Now, I admit I may have been a little hasty. Oh, I still think Anderson is, indisputably, a genius, and I would rather watch a lesser film of his than the best effort of just about anyone else. But Punch-Drunk Love is not the kind of film that would normally inspire such a passionate statement of adoration. Like all of Anderson's films, its theme is how love can heal people who are lonely and battered by life. However, whereas the other films were novels bordering on full-blown epics, Punch-Drunk Love is a short story, focused, modest, and simple (or as simple as Anderson can be). Whereas his last film clocked in at over three hours, Punch-Drunk Love is only half as long. And whereas the other films featured large casts made up of dramatic powerhouses such as Philip Baker Hall, Samuel L. Jackson, John C. Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Julianne Moore, Jason Robards, and Tom Cruise, Punch-Drunk Love has only two stars — one of whom is Adam Sandler. Is it good? Yes. Will it blow your mind, keep you up at night, and inspire heated debates as Boogie Nights or Magnolia might have done? No. What Anderson accomplishes with Punch-Drunk Love is to confirm that he is inventive, compassionate, and completely in command of his art, while revealing for the first time that he can play his tune piano as well as forte, with no serious loss of success.

The movie gets off to a rather clunky start with a weak attempt at introducing the kind of Fate so prominent in Magnolia, but then it finds its own pace and sets off running. Sandler is introduced as Barry Egan, a lonely, decent, mild-mannered fellow with a huge amount of pent-up frustration who owns a business that makes specialty toilet plungers. The main cause of Barry's emotional stress is the fact that he has seven sisters, all of whom feel it is their inherent right to nag and tease him whenever and however they feel like it. But Barry's life is about to change (which is, perhaps, why he has inexplicably put on a new blue suit). First, he meets Lena Leonard (Emily Watson), a cute British lady who asks him for a favor with ulterior romantic motives. (Anderson films Watson as the very picture of mature but sexy womanhood, like the teacher you adored when you were just a boy, whose wrinkles detract not at all from the light step and lithe curves of her brightly colored figure). Second, after a meltdown at the birthday party of one of his sisters, Barry makes a call to a phone sex line hoping to talk to a woman who will actually be nice to him, by which he becomes involved with a shady operation run by a sleazebag named Dean (played with exquisite aplomb by Anderson regular Philip Seymour Hoffman — I guess one genius deserves another). When Barry is reluctant to comply with an attempt to extort money from him, Dean sends out a pack of goons to rough him up, just as Lena makes her move.

Now, you might think that all this would only add to Barry's stress, but it turns out to be just what the doctor ordered. There are two things that he needs: someone to love him, and something that impels him to break through his masochistic passivity and vent his considerable anger. When Lena asks him out to dinner and then encourages him to meet her in Hawaii, he finds the first thing; when Dean's goons place her in danger after they return, he finds the second. Love, destiny, and redemption: this is classic Paul Thomas Anderson, only this time it is served up without the usual maelstrom of drugs, violence, sex, raining frogs, and other operatic touches. It's really just boy meets girl, boy buys a lot of pudding (don't ask; you'll just have to learn about that on your own), boy falls in love, boy faces down demons. Omnia vincit amor.

Despite the fact that he always works with exceptionally talented actors, Anderson himself has always been the star of his pictures, his style and intensity outshining everything else. However, the more subdued presentation of Punch-Drunk Love leaves the spotlight to Adam Sandler, who proves to be as exceptional as any who came before him. Never mind that Anderson wrote the role for Sandler or that it may be similar to the other hapless nice-guy roles of his big, doofus comedies (or so I have heard); Sandler delivers a pitch-perfect performance that entails both range and subtlety, as well as a physical dexterity inseparable from the part. Barry Egan looks quiet and polite, but really wants to smash somebody's head in; he's pathetic but strangely dignified; he runs the gamut from tears to joy, love to hatred, passivity to violence, and it's all about him. Whether the film has any meaning whatsoever depends on whether we care about Barry, and we do, because Sandler makes him cute, sweet, sad, messed-up, and, in his own strange way, hopeful. Anderson likes to take risks, and offering Sandler this role is probably the latest proof of that. Once again, the risk pays off.

If I needed another reason to admire Paul Thomas Anderson (which I didn't), Punch-Drunk Love shows that he continues to look for new ways to express and challenge himself (which, actually, is to be hoped for, since he's only 32), and that his heart is ever in the right place. His latest effort is not gothic and intense like Hard Eight, dazzling and kinetic like Boogie Nights, or comprehensive and metaphysical like Magnolia. It took me two viewings in two days to get over my expectations, based on these earlier films, but in the end I realized that Anderson's brilliant vision is alive and well in Punch-Drunk Love, only in a cleaner, simpler form.

Copyright © 2002 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.