Punch-Drunk Love (Film 20)
It was February 1995, I'd already missed the heyday of Saturday Night Live (the era of Chris Farley, David Spade, Adam Sandler, et al) and I was an equally obnoxious and naive 8th grader. I was causing enough trouble to be a pain-in-the-ass to both parents. My mother was reaching her limit on what she could take from me, but my dad was taking it on the chin. "He's just being a 'normal' teenage boy," he kept repeated to my mother. No need to worry. I think he knew a little better than her, since he was also a teenage boy, once.
I remember 1995 vividly for a couple of reasons:
(1) I had been causing a lot of trouble for myself and others at Holy Cross Junior High, culminating in a fight in late October which got me suspended for 3 days, at the end of which it was determined that it was in everyone's best interest if I transferred to another school. My parents agreed, but I still had a good couple of weeks before I could transfer, so of course, with the knowledge of my academic career inevitably coming to a close, I opted to be the biggest pain-in-the-ass at school. I felt invincible. No detentions could affect. I was rude, obnoxious, an all-around terror to my friends and most of all teachers. I talked back. I didn't care. They couldn't touch me. I was leaving. I remember in one of my classes, I took an entire box of paper clips, smeared them, one by one, with glue (glue-sticks were handy, not that Elmore's Glue) and tossed them up on the ceiling of the classroom one by one. I had told my best friend, Jason, to look up at the ceiling when he was in class next period to see my masterpiece. (Our friendship is an entire other story of mayhem perhaps worthy of a separate post, but let's just say that by 8th grade we had to be separated from homerooms together due to the bond we had, which often distracted everyone, including us and the teachers). You could hear the paper clips "clink" as they hit the ceiling. I was so proud of myself for my deviant behavior. Now, I know what you're thinking. That's mild deviant behavior. But, you have to understand where I was coming from. I tended to live in a Catholic-bubble of security, thanks in large part to my mother for being overprotective.
(2) 1995 is year Adam Sandler's first starring major-motion picture, "Billy Madison," came out. My dad and I were on one of our many hockey road trips. I had a tournament over February vacation in Waterville. It was just my dad and I, as these road trips seemed to always be (aside from one where my sister, Jen, decided to join us). We had nothing to do one night after a couple hockey games during the day, so my dad asked what I wanted to do. Now, I'd heard of Adam Sandler before. I remember being introduced to "They're All Gonna Laugh At You" his comedy album, but a lot of his humor and inneundos went over my head. Well, my dad and I went to see "Billy Madison" at the local movie theatre in Waterville and I thought it was hilarious, perhaps because I heard the 4 or 5 other people in the theatre laughing throughout the movie, but I didn't really understand the humor. I think my father understood it, all too well, because I can remember looking over at him a couple of times and I could see him physically cringing over the idea of bringing me to an "adult humor-themed" movie. Perhaps he was just anticipating the backlash it would create with my mother, once we returned home. But jokes like, "Turn your Reading is Fun books to page 69." "Hahaha 69!" totally went over my head.
Regardless Adam Sandler became my new idol. Gone were the days of hockey players being the guys I looked up to. I wanted to be Adam Sandler. Even though, I didn't really understand him. All I understood was that he got laughs. And he got pretty girls. Veronica Vaughn (Bridget Wilson) "So hot, so hot, want to touch the heinie." (Another sexual inneundo, rather direct, though.) Jokes and repetition became my moniker. I transferred to St. Pete's (another Catholic junior high in Lewiston) and graduated with a class of only 8 other students. We were like a tight-knit family. I still remember them: Destiny (who become a great friend of mine, all the way through high school), Michelle (the gorgeous girl, whom I dated briefly), Myranda (the tough/bad girl that I wanted to date in high school, briefly), Sean (a great kid, who was kind of foolish), Tony (the all-American hockey player), Brooks (another hockey player, but he was larger-than-life), Peter (another sports star), and J.P. (kind of the forgotten kid of the group). When I transferred, I knew I had a brand new group of people to impress and that I could re-create myself for them. I'd been the trouble-maker and it didn't quite fit. So, I put that outfit away and decided "I'm going to be the class clown. The guy that hides himself behind his jokes. The guy that will laugh at himself." I decided to play the fool, except it wasn't even genuine or new. I was a copycat. I remember quoting "Billy Madison" verbatim, probably to the point where my peers wondered if I had any original thoughts. I even remember wearing my baseball hat inside-out because Adam Sandler had done the same in the movie. I knew the movie from beginning to end. If I'd invested myself in schoolwork as much as I did in memorizing movies, skits, et cetera, I could've been a straight-A student. But, that wasn't the role I'd assigned myself. Besides, my sister was already shining in that role and I knew I couldn't compete with her, so I told jokes. I wasn't opposed to physical comedy either. And, believe me, I knew how to run my mouth. All of this would continue throughout high school. I was the funny kid with acne who made fun of himself, who ran his mouth, it didn't matter as long as the spotlight was on me. It still burns me up that I was not voted "Class Clown," since I'd worked extremely hard for 4 years at earning that title!
So, Adam Sandler. He was the buffoon in all his movies. And then, in 2002 he took a major departure when he played Barry Egan in Paul Thomas Anderson's "Punch-Drunk Love." I remember seeing this movie at the Eveningstar Theatre in Brunswick. I love this independent theatre for its atmosphere. They have couches and recliners! I think, though, even back then (two years out of high school and 20 years old), I saw movies but didn't really understand or look deeper into them. So, I watched it again for this project and I was blown away (as I usually am with P.T. Anderson's films). Anderson cast Sandler in this role, in this specific film for a reason. It's like he saw something hidden, deeper in all the characters Sandler had played in his dim-witted comedies prior to "Punch-Drunk Love" and he took those characters and he created the adult-version of them, sensing there was something missing in them, like they each had a need they wanted to express but were not given the appropriate script. As Roger Ebert said,
"The Sandler characters are almost oppressively nice, like needy puppies, and yet they conceal a masked hostility to society, a passive-aggressive need to go against the flow, a gift for offending others while in the very process of being ingratiating."
Anderson, given his other credits, is the right director for Sandler to expose himself through. Sandler is the suffering outsider with something urgent to say. He actually reveals a depth and tone to his acting that the viewer couldn't see through his immaturity. He is still rather childlike in "Punch-Drunk Love" as well as passive-aggressive. He tries to present himself as a cheerful, bland guy, but inside he is boiling up (from his lack of companionship, but mostly from the pestering of his seven sisters...interesting amount of sisters, because 2 or 3 wouldn't be enough to send him over the edge). He has outbursts of rage throughout the film. It's not a violence meant to harm, but rather it's a violence brought on by frustration. He even cries and admits to a brother-in-law that "sometimes I don't like myself." Is this film almost a confessional for Adam Sandler?
There is an unpredictability in Anderson's films, which is quite a departure from Sandler's other formulaic comedies that follow a predictable pattern of Act 1, Act 2, and Act 3. Anderson purposely puts his characters in situations of serendipity. They have a need that is met, through actions and/or other characters. Here, Barry Egan meets Lena (Emily Watson, an unconventional beauty in her own rite) and they have an unexpected chemistry and you can tell that Barry had to meet Lena, and vice versa. Meanwhile, Barry has found a loophole in an American Airlines promotion which will lead to an endless supply of frequent flyer miles, which he just so happens to need (again serendipity at play) at this point in his life. Barry has had it with people sticking their noses in his business and he finally reaches a breaking point. And falls in love. Unfortunately, before he met Lena, he happened to call a phone-sex line and that quickly unravels itself into a subplot that ties together nicely with the love story.
Anderson is a mastermind of filmmaking and here he manages to tell a romantic, bizarre, love story about so much more within the confines of 90 minutes (a feat for him, since all of his movies teeter on the 2.5 hour+ mark). Watch this movie, if for nothing else but to understand Sandler's other movies in a new way. I still enjoy old Adam Sandler movies, but I cannot sit through his recent dim-wit comedies where he seems to be trying hard to relive his "glory days" when with "Punch-Drunk Love" he actually showed maturity and now he seems to be letting me down.
I remember 1995 vividly for a couple of reasons:
(1) I had been causing a lot of trouble for myself and others at Holy Cross Junior High, culminating in a fight in late October which got me suspended for 3 days, at the end of which it was determined that it was in everyone's best interest if I transferred to another school. My parents agreed, but I still had a good couple of weeks before I could transfer, so of course, with the knowledge of my academic career inevitably coming to a close, I opted to be the biggest pain-in-the-ass at school. I felt invincible. No detentions could affect. I was rude, obnoxious, an all-around terror to my friends and most of all teachers. I talked back. I didn't care. They couldn't touch me. I was leaving. I remember in one of my classes, I took an entire box of paper clips, smeared them, one by one, with glue (glue-sticks were handy, not that Elmore's Glue) and tossed them up on the ceiling of the classroom one by one. I had told my best friend, Jason, to look up at the ceiling when he was in class next period to see my masterpiece. (Our friendship is an entire other story of mayhem perhaps worthy of a separate post, but let's just say that by 8th grade we had to be separated from homerooms together due to the bond we had, which often distracted everyone, including us and the teachers). You could hear the paper clips "clink" as they hit the ceiling. I was so proud of myself for my deviant behavior. Now, I know what you're thinking. That's mild deviant behavior. But, you have to understand where I was coming from. I tended to live in a Catholic-bubble of security, thanks in large part to my mother for being overprotective.
(2) 1995 is year Adam Sandler's first starring major-motion picture, "Billy Madison," came out. My dad and I were on one of our many hockey road trips. I had a tournament over February vacation in Waterville. It was just my dad and I, as these road trips seemed to always be (aside from one where my sister, Jen, decided to join us). We had nothing to do one night after a couple hockey games during the day, so my dad asked what I wanted to do. Now, I'd heard of Adam Sandler before. I remember being introduced to "They're All Gonna Laugh At You" his comedy album, but a lot of his humor and inneundos went over my head. Well, my dad and I went to see "Billy Madison" at the local movie theatre in Waterville and I thought it was hilarious, perhaps because I heard the 4 or 5 other people in the theatre laughing throughout the movie, but I didn't really understand the humor. I think my father understood it, all too well, because I can remember looking over at him a couple of times and I could see him physically cringing over the idea of bringing me to an "adult humor-themed" movie. Perhaps he was just anticipating the backlash it would create with my mother, once we returned home. But jokes like, "Turn your Reading is Fun books to page 69." "Hahaha 69!" totally went over my head.
Regardless Adam Sandler became my new idol. Gone were the days of hockey players being the guys I looked up to. I wanted to be Adam Sandler. Even though, I didn't really understand him. All I understood was that he got laughs. And he got pretty girls. Veronica Vaughn (Bridget Wilson) "So hot, so hot, want to touch the heinie." (Another sexual inneundo, rather direct, though.) Jokes and repetition became my moniker. I transferred to St. Pete's (another Catholic junior high in Lewiston) and graduated with a class of only 8 other students. We were like a tight-knit family. I still remember them: Destiny (who become a great friend of mine, all the way through high school), Michelle (the gorgeous girl, whom I dated briefly), Myranda (the tough/bad girl that I wanted to date in high school, briefly), Sean (a great kid, who was kind of foolish), Tony (the all-American hockey player), Brooks (another hockey player, but he was larger-than-life), Peter (another sports star), and J.P. (kind of the forgotten kid of the group). When I transferred, I knew I had a brand new group of people to impress and that I could re-create myself for them. I'd been the trouble-maker and it didn't quite fit. So, I put that outfit away and decided "I'm going to be the class clown. The guy that hides himself behind his jokes. The guy that will laugh at himself." I decided to play the fool, except it wasn't even genuine or new. I was a copycat. I remember quoting "Billy Madison" verbatim, probably to the point where my peers wondered if I had any original thoughts. I even remember wearing my baseball hat inside-out because Adam Sandler had done the same in the movie. I knew the movie from beginning to end. If I'd invested myself in schoolwork as much as I did in memorizing movies, skits, et cetera, I could've been a straight-A student. But, that wasn't the role I'd assigned myself. Besides, my sister was already shining in that role and I knew I couldn't compete with her, so I told jokes. I wasn't opposed to physical comedy either. And, believe me, I knew how to run my mouth. All of this would continue throughout high school. I was the funny kid with acne who made fun of himself, who ran his mouth, it didn't matter as long as the spotlight was on me. It still burns me up that I was not voted "Class Clown," since I'd worked extremely hard for 4 years at earning that title!
So, Adam Sandler. He was the buffoon in all his movies. And then, in 2002 he took a major departure when he played Barry Egan in Paul Thomas Anderson's "Punch-Drunk Love." I remember seeing this movie at the Eveningstar Theatre in Brunswick. I love this independent theatre for its atmosphere. They have couches and recliners! I think, though, even back then (two years out of high school and 20 years old), I saw movies but didn't really understand or look deeper into them. So, I watched it again for this project and I was blown away (as I usually am with P.T. Anderson's films). Anderson cast Sandler in this role, in this specific film for a reason. It's like he saw something hidden, deeper in all the characters Sandler had played in his dim-witted comedies prior to "Punch-Drunk Love" and he took those characters and he created the adult-version of them, sensing there was something missing in them, like they each had a need they wanted to express but were not given the appropriate script. As Roger Ebert said,
"The Sandler characters are almost oppressively nice, like needy puppies, and yet they conceal a masked hostility to society, a passive-aggressive need to go against the flow, a gift for offending others while in the very process of being ingratiating."
Anderson, given his other credits, is the right director for Sandler to expose himself through. Sandler is the suffering outsider with something urgent to say. He actually reveals a depth and tone to his acting that the viewer couldn't see through his immaturity. He is still rather childlike in "Punch-Drunk Love" as well as passive-aggressive. He tries to present himself as a cheerful, bland guy, but inside he is boiling up (from his lack of companionship, but mostly from the pestering of his seven sisters...interesting amount of sisters, because 2 or 3 wouldn't be enough to send him over the edge). He has outbursts of rage throughout the film. It's not a violence meant to harm, but rather it's a violence brought on by frustration. He even cries and admits to a brother-in-law that "sometimes I don't like myself." Is this film almost a confessional for Adam Sandler?
There is an unpredictability in Anderson's films, which is quite a departure from Sandler's other formulaic comedies that follow a predictable pattern of Act 1, Act 2, and Act 3. Anderson purposely puts his characters in situations of serendipity. They have a need that is met, through actions and/or other characters. Here, Barry Egan meets Lena (Emily Watson, an unconventional beauty in her own rite) and they have an unexpected chemistry and you can tell that Barry had to meet Lena, and vice versa. Meanwhile, Barry has found a loophole in an American Airlines promotion which will lead to an endless supply of frequent flyer miles, which he just so happens to need (again serendipity at play) at this point in his life. Barry has had it with people sticking their noses in his business and he finally reaches a breaking point. And falls in love. Unfortunately, before he met Lena, he happened to call a phone-sex line and that quickly unravels itself into a subplot that ties together nicely with the love story.
Anderson is a mastermind of filmmaking and here he manages to tell a romantic, bizarre, love story about so much more within the confines of 90 minutes (a feat for him, since all of his movies teeter on the 2.5 hour+ mark). Watch this movie, if for nothing else but to understand Sandler's other movies in a new way. I still enjoy old Adam Sandler movies, but I cannot sit through his recent dim-wit comedies where he seems to be trying hard to relive his "glory days" when with "Punch-Drunk Love" he actually showed maturity and now he seems to be letting me down.
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