The strange thing about Adam Sandler’s great performance in “Punch-Drunk Love” is not that it’s Oscar caliber, but that it’s the same performance he has always given. Sandler’s Barry Egan would easily fit in with Happy Gilmore or The Wedding Singer, but instead finds himself amidst a wonderful love story told with bizarre panache by writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson.
In the oddly sweet film, Barry is a novelty salesman who is in serious need of some anger management classes. Tormented and taunted by his seven sisters since he was born, Barry is a sweet, but frustrated, mess of a man who only comes out of his shell with bursts of violent behavior. Fearful of humiliation and embarrassment, Barry keeps to himself and doesn’t reveal anything personal to anybody.
Feeling lonely, Barry finally reaches out by calling a phone sex line. Not for sexual reasons, but to just talk to someone. On the phone, Barry seems confused as to what the girl wants him to do. But the effort to quash his loneliness through phone sex backfires when the girl calls back to blackmail him.
Stung by his one attempt at connecting with someone, Barry nearly refuses a date with one of his sister’s friends, Lena Leonard, played by Emily Watson, (Red Dragon, Gosford Park) who finally gets Barry to open up voluntarily.
Sandler and Watson make a cute couple. Their interaction with each other seems real. They are nervous and clumsy, not sure how far they will allow themselves to go in this relationship. In one scene, Barry, who has traveled all the way to Hawaii to see Lena on the spur of the moment, tries to greet her with a handshake, while she gives him a heartfelt hug. This is an awkward moment that seems to reflect real life.
“Punch-Drunk Love” is not as structured as Anderson’s last two films, “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia,” which allows for a rougher storytelling style. Even though sometimes this looser environment falls way to some coarse improvisations from the actors, it also opens up a truer path to emotions that may get trampled by very rehearsed filmmaking.
Anderson has constructed the paradox Adam Sandler film. It is an art house movie that most of Sandler’s mainstream fans would never see, starring an actor that most art house fans would avoid. While neither group should miss this film, it is the art house crowd who will be most pleased. As an Adam Sandler film, “Punch-Drunk Love” is a failure, which is not a bad thing. While the wacky voices and mannerisms of Sandler’s other characters are missing here, the tender sweet guy that is the center of all his work is very much present in this film.