|
 |
|
Punch-Drunk Love
***1/2
Cinema
Reviews - Week of February 7, 2003
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 15. USA.
94 minutes. Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Starring Adam Sandler,
Emily Watson, Luis Guzman, Hazel Mailloux, Julie Hermelin, Philip Seymour
Hoffman.
Yes, Adam Sandler is a revelation in
"Punch-Drunk Love", but it's not because his persona has grown
up. He's playing the same doofus as in his famous comedies -- unable to
communicate, prone to fits of temper, hated and mistrusted by those around
him. The difference is that Paul Thomas Anderson knows how to film this;
he puts it in the right context, and finds in it sadness and truth, instead
of framing it as the happy-go-lucky antics of a loveable comic
antihero.
I'll admit it: I don't get the Adam Sandler
phenomenon. I have yet to see "Happy Gilmore", which the boys always tell
me is his masterpiece, but I did subject myself to the antisocial annoyance
of "Big Daddy" and the excruciating retard hijinks of "The Waterboy" and
"Billy Madison". "The Wedding Singer" was fun for its colourful energy and
production design, and Sandler was calmer than usual. "Little Nicky" was
a sharp comedy, and could have been a great one, if it had something at its
centre other than Sandler and his collection of degenerate snorting
noises.
Sandler just doesn't make himself look right.
I have yet to find him funny because I get too irritated on sight. His stance
is ill at ease, like an unsure teenage boy at a school dance. His eyes glare
and his voice drones, and this crew cut he's got going makes him look like
a chimp. His characters display a hostility toward others, which gets let
loose through offensively roaring rants. When asked uncomfortable questions,
the Sandler act is to em, aw, play with fingers on mouth and generally fidget
in the manner of a child.
In "Punch-Drunk Love", he plays Barry Egan, a
salesman running his own business by way of sad, lonely days in rented warehouse
space. He wears the dorkiest blue suit, talks to people in person as if they
are on the phone, and is getting driven crazy by all these calls from his
sisters. They want to know if he's coming to a party tonight. He says, yeah.
They say, you'd better. And they hardly try to hide their
contempt.
Barry has all the characteristics of the customary
Sandler hero, but watching "Punch-Drunk Love" we hardly notice that, because
we're not thinking in those terms. Anderson, the great young director behind
"Boogie Nights" and "Magnolia", has framed him in shots of quiet, distanced
desperation. If Barry is funny, it's because we're in compassionate but
nonetheless freaked-out disbelief at this social inadequate. This is a bizarrely
toned character study, and it feels original. The screen is not filled with
happy colours and bounciness -- it doesn't cue us to feel like we're watching
a goofy comedy, and we have to reflect on the complexity of Barry, and attempt
to find his humanity.
The title might lead you to guess that the material
develops into a love story... and it does... a strange one. Emily Watson
plays Lena, a friend of one of Barry's sisters, and she's not another goofball
who manages to find a goofy connection with Sandler and live happily ever
after as one of a pair of happy geeks. Or, in a way she is, but not an obvious
way. She is hard to gauge, and has desires that sometimes don't seem to click
with the way she carries herself. But people are like that. They always surprise
you, for better and worse. If you put them into easily defined boxes and
think you've succeeded in nailing them, you will make
mistakes.
This is all very easy to say, but it's an achievement
for a movie to make us feel it. I still don't feel like I've mastered all
the character traits that were going on, even though this is not a movie
whose plot confuses us, or whose individual moments are difficult to emotionally
comprehend. I mean that in a good way -- the film is unpredictable in its
humour, drama and poignancy, and ends up fascinating. Anderson assembles
a subdued, uneasy comedy-drama, and combines it with flourishes that show
the pure joy of filmmaking. He employs the widescreen canvas he has gotten
so fond of in his recent works, he interrupts stretches of silence with music
that dreamily sweeps, he shows interludes of colours, just colours, floating
on top of each other. And there is one image that announces itself as instantly
memorable for the simplicity of its cinematic beauty, when the lovers are
seen from a distance, as silhouettes kissing under an archway.
COPYRIGHT©
2003 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
2003 Reviews
(alphabetical)
2003 Reviews (by star
rating)
Archive of all cinema reviews
(alphabetical)
Review Archive
Index
UK
Critic main page
|
|
![[Image]](http://www.ukcritic.com/posbanr2.gif)