Day 164 - Punch-Drunk Love

Day 164          Punch-Drunk Love [2002]

                          

Screenplay                    Paul Thomas Anderson

Director                         Paul Thomas Anderson

Cinematography            Robert Elswit

Music                            Jon Brion

Leads                            Adam Sandler, Emily Watson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Luis Guzmán, Carol Mirelez, Mary Lynn Rajskub

Production                     Revolution Studios, New Line Cinema

IMDb                                7.3/10

Rotten Tomatoes                80%

It feels like we’ve come full circle since Day 1 (Meyerowitz Stories) – I should have made this the halfway film on purpose. The reason I write this is because it’s another film, 15 years earlier, that proves Adam Sandler can act. In this we see both his Dr Jekyll, the Sandler of iconic childish comedies, and his Mr Hyde, the darker Sandler who can project real emotions and activate feelings in the audience without speaking in a silly voice. In this film he plays a salesman (what he sells is irrelevant), Barry Egan, with seven emotionally-detached sisters. It appears his relationship with his sisters is poor, at least from his point-of-view, as they have bullied him without knowing it all his life. This means that Barry has anxiety, as well as anger management problems, and doesn’t seem to have any friends outside of work. Sandler expresses these emotions successfully and in a way that lets us relate to him. PTA, Elswit and Brion help us understand Barry’s emotions even further with jarring sounds and shots that both catch us off guard and create an empty space around Barry. The opening shot, for example, is a perfect expression of Barry’s situation and character, which is then emphasised by PTA’s script in having Barry converse with customer service in a way that points to his loneliness. I enjoy films that do this – dive straight into the character so that we know who they are, and we are with them every step of the way. I can understand why audiences didn’t enjoy it that much; it didn’t cover its budget at the box office. It may also have had something to do with the perception of both Adam Sandler’s usual roles and Rom-Coms. This film does not fit with either stereotype and what we get instead is an off-beat romance that is far more tangible than the usual rubbish but is not suited to your day-to-day filmgoer. Hard to fault PTA isn’t it?

Acting                              4 / 4

Writing                             3 / 4

Cinematography            3.5 / 4

Music                            3.5 / 4

HWF rating               3.5 / 4