Brattle Theatre Film Notes: Punch Drunk Love Burdened with a gaggle of nagging sis- scores Barry’s plight and makes the USA, 2002. Rated R. 95 min ters, he bears the scars of a lifetime of explosive scenes of violence and Cast: Adam Sandler, Emily Watson, Luis emotional abuse, vacillating between action all the more effective. Also gone Guzman, Phillip Seymour Hoffman; mumbling detachment and bursts of is Anderson’s ambitious plotting and Writer: Paul Thomas Anderson; rage and violence. Barry’s second scope. PUNCH DRUNK LOVE is Barry’s Cinematography: Robert Elswit; problem is a result of the first. In a film, without distraction or mistake Music: Jon Brion; Producer: Paul moment of particularly acute longing, (Sandler is in almost every scene). Thomas Anderson, Daniel Lupi, Joanne he has called a phone sex number and Rather than create a web of human ()Sellar; Director: Paul Thomas Anderson injudiciously given his name, address, struggle and pain, with multiple plots and credit card information. He is now overlapping in theme and tone, aul Thomas Anderson’s 1999 opus, the target of extortionists: the sleazy Anderson presents a lean story that Magnolia, proved what everyone Dean (the peerless Hoffman, returning brings its points home with tremen- Palready suspected about the for his fourth Anderson film) and the dous effect. writer/director. three hooligans he’s sent to shake Barry down. n casting Adam Sandler as Barry, or Anderson’s fans, Magnolia – with Anderson has shown his usual knack its abundance of emotion, sub- n the midst of all this, Barry has, Ifor exploiting actors’ most essential Fplots, twists of fate, desperate almost against his will, found love qualities. Where Anderson gave characters, dying fathers, and almost Iwith the gentle Lena (Watson), a work dimension to Mark Wahlberg’s beef- everything else – was the payoff on the cake presence in Boogie Nights, and in promise of his first features, Hard Eight Magnolia showed the yawning chasm (1996) and Boogie Nights (1997). of emotional despair we suspect has Those who loved Magnolia (and there been at the heart of all Tom Cruise’s is no midpoint of feeling where the characters, here Anderson has taught film is concerned) responded, at least us the secret to the brutish man-chil- in part, to the film’s unabashed sincer- dren Sandler has repeatedly played. In ity, its willingness to risk absurdity in movies like Billy Madison (1995) and the pursuit of true feeling. This brave- Happy Gilmore (1996), Sandler’s ness proved for many Anderson’s artis- puerile behavior is meant to illustrate tic integrity, and vaulted him into the his roguish charm; here, it is presented elite of young directors. as a fault, a symptom of his affliction and an obstacle to his happiness. owever, for his detractors – who friend of one of Barry’s less caustic sis- Although Sandler gives a subtle, effec- had already caught the faint ters. Despite several attempts at dodg- tive performance, it is Anderson who, Hwhiff of self-indulgence in his ing Lena’s advances, Barry has begun to by showing us the pain that would other films – this excess proved understand the value of this simple inevitably be the cause of such behav- Anderson’s unrestrained weakness for human relationship, and the difference ior, has created one of the most sym- rambling emotionalism. Anderson, that tenderness and warmth can make pathetic sociopaths since King Kong. Magnolia proved to some, was willing in his life. He has, in short (and with a to put his audience through whatever sincerity and simplicity that perhaps is ut PUNCH DRUNK LOVE is, first interminable narrative contortions his unique to Anderson among his con- and foremost, a love story – an fertile imagination happened to dis- temporaries), begun to suspect that Boverwhelmingly gentle and kind- gorge, regardless of the obviousness love can change his world. hearted love story. Anderson has some of the points being made. fun tinkering with the conventions of hile there are many familiar the genre (watch especially for Barry hen along came PUNCH DRUNK Andersonian touches in and Lena’s first kiss, the momentum of LOVE, at once a mark of WPUNCH DRUNK LOVE (sudden which is comically broken by Barry’s TAnderson’s evolution as an artist, and inexplicable workings of chance, inability to find his way to Lena through and a confirmation of all his best qual- surreal humor, violent peril that lurks a bland apartment building’s labyrinth ities as a filmmaker. beneath California’s placid surface) it of identical hallways and doors), but UNCH DRUNK LOVE tells the story also marks a significant departure from nothing detracts from the film’s purity of Barry Egan (Sandler), a lonely his previous work. Anderson has mini- of intention. Ultimately, the message of Pwholesaler of bathroom equip- mized the constant swooping and the film could be the message of ment working out of a small warehouse gliding of the camera that has occa- Anderson’s entire career. It is not a in the San Fernando Valley. Barry has sionally made him seem like a shame- novel message, but in an age of irony, two major problems. He is, first and less Scorcese. Instead, the film has a Anderson has bravely found a way to most importantly, profoundly alone. stillness and simplicity that under- say it: love matters most. – Lawrence Fahey