Writing a review of Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Punch-Drunk Love” is difficult, since so much of the experience is beyond description. I will say I haven’t seen a more original, thought-provoking and emotionally affecting movie this year. Anyone looking for a traditional brainless slapstick comedy starring Adam Sandler will be terribly disappointed, and so much the better.
One of the remarkable things about this movie is that Sandler plays just a variation of many of his other characters – a barely-there man-child with serious rage issues. But in this movie, he’s a revelation. You feel the anguish of this borderline agoraphobic, autistic man so keenly it can be painful at times. You also feel his bursting joy when he meets a fellow tortured soul played by Emily Watson, whose hip-swinging walk and sparkling eyes would make anyone fall in love with her.
Along the way, there are car crashes, harmoniums in the street, plungers with dice on top, phone sex workers in Utah, music from “Popeye,” and other magic I’ll let you discover for yourself.
Go. see. this. movie.
I can’t possibly agree with you more. On first inspection, I wanted more from Emily Watson’s character, but then I realized that her face and eyes said everything that needed to be said.
As the credits rolled, my avid-movie-goer friend sitting beside me simply said, “That was the best movie I’ve ever seen.”
I’m so glad Jackass was sold out.
Adam, I want to smash you in the face with a sledgehammer.
Best. Comment. Ever.
Nik, I want to bite your cheek.
I just squealed with girlish delight!
I want to suck out your eyeball and chew on it.
Not to interrupt anything here, but I liked what the film didn’t give us. There are negative spaces in that story which I suspect many viewers won’t even perceive.
This is one of those pop-culture moments when I feel like I haven’t accepted Jesus into my heart as my personal savior and given up my sins and cares into his loving arms. That being said, I’ve always thought that Adam Sandler had genius in him, if only it were released, to rival a Jim Carey or a Robin Williams — without all the mincing. Looking forward to seeing it — anybody game for a second viewing with two heretics?
As much as I love having a leg up on your pop-culture hydrant, John, I can’t resist a chance to see it again! Where and when.
I would watch it over and over again.
YOU PEOPLE ARE FREAKS!!!
< / sour grapes >
I wish I were friends with people who liked cool stuff when I was younger. We could have been squealing like this about “Nashville” (PTAnderson owes Robert Alteman _everything_) or “Wings of Desire” or “Akira” or “Moonstruck” or “Truly Madly Deeply” …
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I go now.
(crap, I can’t type)
Robert Altman is the genius film director’s real name. Dammit.
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I go now.
I’m actually pleased that PTA chose to make a much smaller film this time, rather than trying to out-Altman himself with each go. No doubt he’ll go back to the complex, intertwined stuff, but this is fantastic, and more my speed anyway.
Matt, are you too old to like cool stuff with us now?
Does Anderson owe Altman “Punch Drunk Love”?
I think Matt shares my fear of being “the old guy at the club”, as it were. Boy can I ever not run.
Anderson owes Altman his career due to the fact that his career-establishing movies, “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia: were unquestionably excellent in precisely the same manner in which Robert Altman’s films are excellent. He stole that style from Altman successfully, and now has a career as a major film director. That would tend to suggest that all films which come due to his having a career as a film director are owed to Altman.
It’s not that hard a stretch.
Wait. Why am I even discussing this? Have you even seen “Nashville”, “McCabe & Mrs. Miller”, “M*A*S*H”? Just watch some of Altman’s most notable films, and then we can talk, except that we wouldn’t have to, because you’d come around to my way of thinking.
(Crap, now I know how conservatives feel. Gross!)
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I go now.
You said Anderson owed Altman _everything_ [your emphasis], not his career. Robert Altman is a legendary director, but I’ve never seen him do anything like Punch Drunk Love. I’m not trying to argue that Anderson is better than Altman with that statement, just that he is an original creator.
I think that I can add some leavening to this rather flat argument by saying that just any creative endeavor has to draw from history in one way or another. It’s impossible to be truly original (i.e., from the sea like Venus) when you’re working in a media that has such a long and complex cultural history. So Anderson might owe a nod and a bottle of sherry to Altman, but regardless of whether Altman laid Anderson’s foundation, Anderson still laid his own bricks, whatever instruction manual he was using.
One more time. He would not have gotten the resources to make “Punch Drunk Love” unless he had ripped off Altman (really, really well) for “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia.” Those films established him as a bankable ‘creative force’ in Hollyweird. “Punch Drunk Love” is his.
Look, I like his films. Please argue about something else now.
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I go now.
I don’t see that anything you’ve just said contradicts anything I said previously, so I don’t see how it’s an argument.
Hey! I wonder what the best way to destroy a seemingly magical movie is! Oh, I know! It’s this discussion!
It’s clearly time to visit adamsandler.com
You can’t destroy it.
See it again, and it will renew it’s magical, um, stuff.
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I go now.
See you Thursday.
Matt is a boogerhead.