Punch-Drunk Love

I caught this at the New York film festival and my expectations were about as low as they could be. I was never a huge Adam Sandler fan, and I hadn't ever taken a liking to PT Anderson's other films. I thought that Magnolia was pretty flimsy writing-wise, and I also thought that it got way too much undue attention when it came out.

I couldn't believe how great Punch Drunk Love was. It seems to be the polar opposite of Magnolia. Where Magnolia was sprawling, messy and often generic, Punch Drunk Love is short, tight and completely fresh. It reminded me of Fargo, in a way. It centers on a very small cadre of characters, it's incredibly focused, and it creates its own world for those characters to live and move around in.

It's been mentioned here before, but the art direction is stunning. I haven't seen such memorable visuals since The Royal Tenenbaums. In a grocery store scene, the items are stacked vertically by color (echoing the color bars that appear periodically between scenes), making the scene appear otherworldly. Other sets are bare of color or distinction. Sandler's love interest in the film (played by Emily Watson) lives in a maze of white corridors. Somehow, every "place" in the film has its own character and association. Even the characters become associated with particular colors.

The movie ends up being genuinely romantic while deviating completely from the very stale paradigm for romantic comedies of the last decade: Watson's character pursues Barry Egan; their inability to hit it off from the start is more character-driven and psychological than situational. Through the use of bizarre props and surreal scenes, the anxiety and frustration of Barry Egan becomes totally absorbing and affecting.

This is a wonderfully directed film. There isn't an extraneous moment. The visual style and pacing are particularly great. There's an interesting subtext in the film about communication - enormous background noise while characters are on the phone, Barry Egan's sisters' voices create this wall of noise (all voices making fun of him), telephones figure predominantly, the opening scene is completely bereft of background noise or music. There are a lot of interesting things to consider when it comes to the theme of communication and how sound is handled in the film.

That said, I'm already cringing at how most people are going to react to this. The Adam Sandler fans might find it too weird. People who liked PT Anderson's other movies might find it too pretensious. I was thrilled to have my low expectations completely overturned. This movie is great.

While reading some of the other comments for this film I was initially baffled. I could not understand how anyone in their right mind would dislike, much less hate a movie as simple and beautiful as this.

Then it dawned on me.

Most people don't have the equipment to emphathize with real alienation. They're too happy, they're too normal, their lives and their relationships all worked out a little too easily.

Life for Barry hasn't been like that way at all. In fact he has as much trouble comprehending how normal life works as those with normal lives comprehend how easily it is for someone else's life to suck so bad.

Barry knows he's not doing things "right". But everytime he's reached out he's been rebuked harshly. He doesn't want to leave his apartment or his place of work. He hates visiting his sisters, going "out" to eat, or meeting new people. He's collecting up millions of frequent flyer miles because it's a good deal, but doesn't really see himself ever using them. Everytime he steps a millimeter out of his usual, safe routine it ends up horribly.

But Barry's hell doesn't end there. In addition to all this, no one will ever let him FORGET about any of it. He is continually reminded of everything by his family and all his actions are continually questioned and examined by outsiders so that, in his mind and in his experience, it will add to yet another story on the heap that he will never be allowed to forget. Whenever anyone asks him a personal question, or a question about his actions, he usually responds with the safe and evasive, "I don't know." Any other answer leaves him open to likely ridicule for the rest of his life.

Barry spends most of the movie, quite understandably, in a continual state of social paralysis, suffocating to death before our eyes.

And then eventually, a break comes. Naturally he's defensive, naturally he expects things to go horribly wrong, and that he'd never be able to live it down and be forced to remember every excruciating detail on through eternity. But it doesn't ... and eventually he let's himself go. He tells the truth. He opens up. He tells about the pudding, he admits to the phone-sex line. He becomes a bit less paralyzed.

Many people complain that the movie isn't believable because no woman would ever go out with this type of guy.

Well DUH. Of course not.

But the movie isn't about painting a realistic relationship. It isn't about whether a woman would actually go for a guy like him. Her background and her motivations are irrelevent. Accurately painting a fully-fleshed out love interest would be self-defeating. The more accurately painted she was, the less likely we'd EVER believe someone could fall in love with Barry.

The girl he meets is his dream-girl. She represents the idea that even the nuttiest, most repressed, most socially inept individuals deserve a chance at happiness. OF COURSE there'd really never be a person there for Barry, but far more important is the idea that she COULD exist. That somewhere she should exist.

The movie isn't about her, it's about Barry.

This is a great movie (my opinion) and here's why...it shows two characters falling in love and acting stupid. They don't have all the right things to say to each other; they get scared; they walk away and wish they had said something, anything other than what they did/didn't say; they get embarrassed, they giggle and snort...and the list goes on.

If you don't like this movie, it's OK. I think this is the kind of movie that is sorta just sitting there, waiting for the "right" people to see it and nod their heads and smile and say, yes, this is how it is. It's quiet and doesn't scream for people to pay attention to it; it's just there. It doesn't make any promises and it doesn't need to.

The storyline may veer from "real" life, but these two characters pretty much get it--what people do when they are very much "in love" with someone.

I saw Punch Drunk Love at the Gothenburg film festival today and I was totally overwhelmed by it. I had really looked forward to it since I love Paul Thomas Anderson's earlier films. Magnolia is still among my top five favourite movies ever and my expectations were therefore almost too high. I must admit I was sceptical of Adam Sandler playing a serious part. But he makes fantastic interpretation of his character Barry Egan, a small business owner pushed around by his seven (!) sisters who's miserable life takes a turn when he meets love in Emily Watson's character. Watson makes a beautiful portrait of the mysterious and lonely Lena who falls in love with Barry.

The movie isn't just well acted, it's also magnificent to watch. The camerawork is exquisite and Anderson really shows of his visual talent. Every frame in the one and a half hour film could be frozen and displayed as a piece of art. But the most impressive thing in the film is still Adam Sandler. Every word, expression and nuance is perfect and genuine. If this doesn't deserve an Oscar nomination I don't now what will. His performance is superior to the last five winners.

Punch Drunk Love is the way a movie should be. It's the way you wish all movies were like and I wish I could hang it on my wall. The poster will have to do.

Stellar in every part, i like how every review ive read of this film interprets it in a different way, in my opinion it perfectly portrays the autism experience :p