With “Punch-Drunk Love,” director Paul Thomas Anderson once again proves why he is the best thing to happen to movies since the film school brats of the 1970s.
Like the works of Brian DePalma, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, Anderson’s movies are love letters to the medium itself, but are rooted in truth and humanity. He’s a filmmaker with his heart on his sleeve, and he makes no apologies for it — challenging audiences to peel back the layers of their own raw emotions.
“Punch-Drunk Love” is the director’s fourth entry in an impressive streak of movies that includes “Hard Eight,” “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia.”
It tells the story of Barry Egan (Adam Sandler), a reclusive oddball whose self-esteem and confidence have been whittled away by seven older sisters teasing him mercilessly for his thirtysomething years on Earth. He is terrified of not measuring up in the eyes of a woman and thus never makes an effort to find one. His sole source of comfort comes in his discovery of a coupon-cutting scheme that would earn him thousands of frequent-flyer miles, even though he has no intention of going anywhere.
Giving in to a bout of loneliness one night, Barry calls a phone-sex line to simply talk with whoever happens to answer. The woman on the other line — believing him to be a wealthy businessman from Los Angeles — devises a scheme with her boyfriend (Philip Seymour Hoffman) to rip Egan off. While avoiding her harassing phone calls, Egan is introduced to Lena (Emily Watson), a woman who sees through the man’s outward anxieties to the tenderness that lies underneath.
What follows is the unraveling of Barry’s tightly wound exterior, first releasing anger toward those taking advantage of him, and finally finding the self-confidence to do something about it. In typical romantic comedy fashion, it’s love that gives Barry the tools to break out.
But “Punch-Drunk” is anything but typical. It constantly defies the preconceptions people take with them into movies, floating just above reality in a kind of Technicolor dreamland where anything is possible.
A harmonium figures prominently in “Punch-Drunk Love,” and provides a perfect musical subtext for Egan’s childlike sensibility. Anderson chooses his moments for music carefully and every scene feels
richer for it.
Oh, and then there’s Adam Sandler. He’s amazing. That’s all there is to it. Decked in a suffocating blue suit, Sandler finally has a flesh and blood character to throw his displaced energy into. It’s as though Anderson made the movie for the sole purpose of silencing critics who have written him off as a no-talent ham. And Sandler rises to the occasion.
The moments that have made Sandler a star in his comedies come from the anger that erupts from inside him. This is a perfect match for Anderson, whose previous work examines characters that guard their hearts with a self-destructive shell that can only erupt in fits of gut-wrenching emotional truth and revelation. Think Julianne Moore breaking down after losing custody rights of her son in “Boogie Nights.” Think Tom Cruise sobbing to his dying father in “Magnolia.”
Moments in “Punch-Drunk” that elicit laughs at the start hang around just long enough to reveal the sadness and anger that govern Egan’s life. Take the scene where Egan trashes a restaurant bathroom. We see the Sandler from previous films but feel the frustration more deeply. And when Egan screams at his sister from a pay phone in Hawaii, we cheer him on.
In Anderson’s films, the lives of his characters hinge on these eruptions. And this is why he’s the bravest storyteller around. Such scenes would feel melodramatic and false in the hands of a lesser director, but Anderson pulls it off without an ounce of pretense. He recognizes that these moments exist in real life, challenges his actors to make them real on screen and asks an audience to believe.
Barry Egan is a guy who goes through hell to ultimately find harmony in his own life. When he gets to the end of the journey and the music swells, the only thing you can do is sit back and smile.