Punch Drunk Love (2002)
For Dog, who is a friend and who met Adam Sandler while serving
papers to Lennox Lewis.
There are two stories here, maybe three. The first and most
glaring is Adam Sandler, who has grown up before our eyes - from
"Remote Control" to SNL to those insanely catchy
Hanukkah songs (sorry, but half those folks ain't Jewish) to a
slew of distasteful yet apparently irresistible comedies (Happy
Gilmore, The Waterboy, recently Mr. Deeds) - and has been a
constant force in nonsensical, rebel entertainment throughout. So
if you saw pictures of Adam Sandler at this year's Cannes Film
Festival with his arm around Academy Award Nominated actress Emily
Watson (Breaking the Waves), standing with his meek, but somehow
triumphant grin alongside phenom director Paul Thomas Anderson
(Boogie Nights, Magnolia) and were wondering, "is there a
punch line?", "is he drunk?", I guess you were
incidentally two thirds
right. Punch-Drunk Love transforms, or rather reimagines, Sandler
as a tortured hero, a romantic leading man, and (with hesitation
and I'll tell you why) a dramatic actor. That's story number one.
In true P.T. Anderson fashion, we'll skip now to story number
three, allude to number two, then actually articulate number two,
eventually come back to number one, and
by the end you should be so baffled that you'll think this was
some damn good writing.
Story number three is about a writer/director who has proven
himself a dynamic artist and craftsman, meticulously sculpting
soul wrenching depictions of California's miserable people. The
story is that he chooses Adam Sandler to play the protagonist in
his latest effort. How did he make such a brilliant, thoughtful
decision? Remember though, that this is the same man who took
"actor" Mark Whalberg back in 1997 when he was still
called "Marky Mark" when he left the room and set him on
the road to legitimacy by casting him as Dirk Diggler. The man
evidently has an eye because Cajun-Man works miraculously here.
Sandler embodies the lonely, anxiety plagued, emotionally stunted,
beauty of a human being, Barry Egan with real purpose and grace.
Allot of the credit goes to Anderson for his wonderful gift for
writing in a way that finds the depth in plain speech and also for
his clear forceful influence when handling a
ctors
used to doing their own thing (See also Tom Cruise's Oscar
nominated performance in Magnolia).
Anderson has said that he chose Sandler for the simple reason that
Adam makes him laugh and that he loves it when Adam gets
infuriated on screen. You'd think a man with such exquisite
aesthetic taste when it came to film would have the same when it
came to comedy, but go figure. Maybe a strange reason to cast
Billy Madison as your lead (not exactly an inconsequential
decision), but I don't believe anyone will ever accuse Anderson of
sticking to the script. After all, this is the man who made the
film Magnolia after listening to Aimee Man's music and decided
that it needed a story to go along with it.
Sandler, who has explored some emotional range before in films
like The Wedding Singer (tell me you didn't tear up when he sang
"Growing Old With You" to Drew Barrymore on the
plane….or when you saw how leathery Billy Idol looked), may not
have officially made the leap to dramatic actor just yet. His next
film is an all-out Sandler comedy called "Anger
Management" with the distinction that it stars Jack
Nicholson, who would appeared to have been slumming had it not
been for Sandler's new-found respect among thespians. Not only
that, Punch-Drunk Love has a very fine comedic edge to it and
while it is not a typical Sandler style comedy, Barry Egan is a
very standard Sandler character, just tone down the stupidity a
bit and jack up the grit and wound exposure. Paul Thomas Anderson
used Sandler for a very specific purpose -to convey a sense of
tough-luck awkwardness and smile-masking-frown frustration, and it
worked perfectly - if other directors sense falsely that they can
do the same, or if Sandler attempts to go out on his own dramatic
limb, this carefully constructed house of cards may come crashing
down.
Story number two is Anderson and his new film, Punch-Drunk Love.
It is about a disgruntled, disengaged, weird looking, weird
dressing guy looking for what turns out to be companionship (this
could have been a documentary filmed in Washington Heights). He is
rescued by what I can only presume to be an angel in the human
form of Emily Watson whom I am newly in love with - she is a
marvel of delicate feminine energy. Everything else in the film is
just Andersonisms. When you sit down for a P.T. Anderson epic
(although Punch-Drunk Love is significantly shorter in scope and
running time as compared to his last two films) you really don't
know what you're going to get. Could be some terrifically raw
interaction between human beings at the ends of their endlessly
knotted ropes, could be….frogs raining from the heavens in all
seriousness. I could do the without the frogs - I like my
metaphors watered down. For the first ten minutes of his new film,
Anderson delivers what appears to be another amphibian-fest - a
combination of oddities that you know really won't go anywhere and
even if they do, it's just too much - too obvious that he's trying
to be odd. Once that is out of the way, we begin to settle in and
truly discover Barry and all his endearing and frightening
idiosyncrasies. The film does not shy away from being violent or
perverse and seeing Sandler in these situations does not feel
unnatural - more like a very pleasant surrealism. We can root for
Barry all the way because we see in him the outsider in all of us,
whether it be in the family, romantic, social, or business
setting. We want him to have a victory because he deserves it just
for suffering the role of outsider. This is the heart of the film
and it is a large, vibrant, beating heart filled with that
deliciously intoxicating red liquid.
