Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
I can’t believe I’m actually working for Revolution Studios and I haven’t figured out a way to weasel into this film yet. The Austin AICNers are about to see the film this morning, and I’m sitting here forced to just read about it to satisfy my own PTA jones.
At least I live right around the corner from The Grove, where the film opens in limited release this Friday. Whoo-hoo!!
Let’s see what this first reviewer thinks:
Harry, AICN staff, fellow film lovers and everyone everywhere:
This is Edith Bouvier Beale, Jr. in New York. I've recently been on a screening binge and purge, seeing many delectable fall treats, including tonight's entry, PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE, which screened at the city's comfiest locale, the Union Square 14.
This magical wonderwow of a film is not for all God's children. I happen to think that PTA in the second coming, and that MAGNOLIA is the finest American film since the heyday of Robert Altman in the 70s. So I went in being MORE than a little biased. Not even my pre-exisitng bias could prepare me for the charms and wiles of PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE. It's just spectacular.
Adam Sandler is so creepy. And by creepy, I mean I was squirming in my seat, wanting to take my gloved hand to his cheek and scream "STOP BEING SO WEIRD, YOU RAIN MAN MOTHERFUCKER!" He's basically an idiot savant, but without the savant. When Sandler's Barry Egan, a lonely plunger (or "Funger") salesman meets for Emily Watson's mystery woman, he falls hard and one of the most charming screen love stories emerges. The plot, such as it is, shows how the love of a fine woman turns Barry's life around. There's also a bit with phone sex, blackmail and Hawaii, but whatever. Aside from Sandler's complete embodiment of his character (OSCAR NOM! OSCAR NOOOOMMM!), Watson cements herself as one of the best of the fucking best. Her face. Just her face. Glory be.
PTA's a genius. Brilliantly directed. The sound is so cool. Jon Brion's score is the most trippy, hypnotic harmonium music I've ever heard, and I try to hear as much harmonium music as possible.
I don't know what else to say. Just see it. It touched my wizened heart.
Warmest,
EDIE :-)
This next one is quite startling...
Hey Harry. First time/long time. Now, I know you all have had quite a few reviews of Punch Drunk Love already, but I thought I’d better let you know about what went down at the NY Film Festival on Saturday night for just one last sort-of-dissenting opinion before the official release.
I should mention that, before the film, PTA, Sandler, and some of his crew (producers and what not) came out and said a couple words, which was nice (even though PTA was, by his own admission, pretty well sloshed (I don’t know if the Lincoln Center crowd was used to that many "fuck"s in one speech)).
Okay, so I don’t want to summarize the movie. That’s been done already I think and I don’t feel it will accomplish much. So here’s the deal—Have you ever felt like the entire world was coming down on your head all the time and no one would let you just quietly do what you want? Well, if you haven’t, get ready to. This movie is frantic. This movie is nuts. You will feel frantic and nuts. "Come on, Doctor. How frantic and nuts can it really be," you ask? Here is the example.
About 15/20 minutes into the film, there is a scene that gets pretty out of control (just so you know it when you see it (as if you won’t) it’s the scene where Emily Watson gets introduced to Adam Sandler by his sister.). The two things that really make this scene especially nuts are Sandler’s performance (which, BTW, is pretty spectacular) and the music/sound design. It’s like slowly building chaos. As I’m watching, drums and piano and some bizarre wailing which doesn’t correspond to the scene are almost drowning out the dialog. My girlfriend turns to me and sarcastically says "Yeah, he didn’t direct or edit this on coke at all." It’s building. There’s a crash. Everyone is jumpy. The camera is jittery. I’m sweating. Then suddenly, the film stops. The screen goes black. The lights come up. Everyone is turning around. The moaning? That wasn’t in the movie. It was a woman.
Punch-Drunk Love had given her a seizure.
Now, the woman ended up being fine and they turned the movie back on after 5 minutes or so, but even when they turned it back on (the scene hadn’t ended yet), it was almost like that just made it that much more crazy and frantic. Hell, I wouldn’t be shocked if Anderson planted that whole thing just to heighten the feeling (though that would be pretty damned impressive (and probably hard to pull off in wide distribution)). In any case, that’s what this movie feels like. It is a love story, but it is mostly about Sandler’s character. And he is nuuuuuuuts. If you’re expecting PTA to stay to form here, don’t. It’s mostly hand-held and nowhere near as slick as his previous stuff. Though it is interesting that, even though he seems to be rejecting his formalist impulses here a bit, he still can’t resist it most of the time (the perfect centered frames, etc.). Anyways, in the end, it reminds me a bit of Requiem For A Dream—well put together, but man, I sure don’t need to see that again. If you have a life that’s just not stressful enough, by all means see it. Otherwise, be wary. Personally, I would make sure to have something fluffy to wash your palate afterwards. If I owned Billy Madison, that might have done the trick.
Dr. Robert Hume
A seizure?! COOL! BRING IT ON!! I WANT TO SEE A FILM THAT IS SO TENSE IT GIVES ME A SEIZURE!! HELL, JUST THE THOUGHT IS MAKING ME...
... sorry. Calming down now. I’ve got my wallet stuffed in my mouth, and while I try to relax, read this last review...
Hey, I saw PDL at the NYFF earlier this weekend and being that PTA is by far my favorite filmmaker, my expectations were quite high and he didnt disappoint. I thought my fellow readers might like to read one more praise of the film they could see this weekend....no need for nicknames this time, call me Germain.
There’s been a lot of guff in the media lately about Hollywood neglecting to make romantic comedies. Films like “Sleepless in Seattle,” “Notting Hill” and “My Best Friends Wedding” are generally thought of as sure-fire hits with a built in female audience, but in 2002, if you aren’t big, fat and Greek, you aren’t a romantic comedy. Enter Paul Thomas Anderson and Adam Sandler. One is associated with porn and frogs; the other with stupidity and sports. Their first collaboration, “Punch-Drunk Love” is not a romantic comedy, though it might sound like one. It lacks full-blown romance and comedy, but even so, it’s the most honest portrayal of love in recent memory.
When Rob Reiner’s “When Harry Met Sally” came out in 1989 it was a huge success and the first of a genre epitomized by the films mentioned above. What it didn’t have in common with the canned films that followed was its truth. Reiner’s film was cute and funny like its imitators, but it contained oodles of truth that the others didn’t. (God forbid Julia Roberts ever said that men and women can’t be real friends cause sex gets in the way.) “Punch-Drunk Love,” hopefully, will set a similar trend as it tells its own truths, only not in a funny or straightforward manner. The 90-minute experience of “Punch-Drunk Love” is as close as one can get to going through the entire emotional range of a loving relationship. It starts off curious and full of wonder, gets sad and pathetic, throw in a little big of woozy, a glimmer of hope, then horror, fright and ultimately redemption and hope. It runs the emotional gauntlet so well that after the film some lucky audience members will sense that Anderson’s film is love at 24 frames per second.
“Punch-Drunk Love” is unlike other romances in that it showcases love in its most raw form. Usually love in movies is nothing more than an up and down roller coaster of happiness; but Anderson’s film refuses to take the easy way out. It demands its audience to remember that while love is ecstasy at the best of times, it can also transform into any and every other emotion in the next second.
Barry Egan (Adam Sandler) is the perfect character to take an audience on such a ride and Anderson’s wonderfully non-sensical script the perfect vehicle. Raised as the lone male with seven sisters, Barry has been emasculated and has no sense of self. His hair trigger temper is the only time his emotions are allowed to escape his haunting facade. Basically, he’s the personification of loneliness and confusion until he meets Lena, played by Emily Watson. The audience learns very little about Lena throughout the film, her primary function is to show Barry what possibilities lie outside of the shell his life has become. She gives him a reason to go to work in the morning, gives him a reason to take a trip, a reason to get upset and smash something and ultimately a reason to stand up for himself. Without Barry’s love for Lena, the audience could never buy where the movie takes us emotionally and narratively. The plot goes from A to Z without skipping a beat and puts Barry in some odd situations, but if it weren’t for Lena’s presence, none of it would matter. Watson’s character pays off all the zigzags of the script.
The casting of Sandler will be the main course of debate for “Punch-Drunk Love” and rightfully so. While a proven audience draw, his acting chops have never been tested and Anderson’s choice in casting Sandler is both a blessing and a bomb in disguise. A blessing because not only is Sandler quite good in the film, I couldn’t imagine anyone else understanding Barry’s character as well as Sandler does here. Barry Egan is basically Bobby Boucher, Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison all rolled into one and 20 years older. All of those characters were lost souls with hearts of gold, happy one second, a rage of emotions the next. Sandler’s casting wasn’t because Anderson thought he would be good in the film, it was typecasting. Sandler has played Barry before, just in different films. On the flipside, Sandler in such a dramatic lead is going to steer the film’s target audience away, and give mainstream audiences a false sense of expectation. That is the one downside to “Punch-Drunk Love.” The film has such a specific aim and does it in such a way that either an audience will either get it or not. If they can feel for Barry, want him to succeed and take pride in him as a person, in the end, they should go through a range of emotions that is rare in the cinema of today.
So while the title might suggest a romantic comedy, “Punch-Drunk Love” is exactly what the title says: an exercise in love at its most honest, drunk with its innumerable possibilities. It’s an original experience and only at the end should we understand what we’ve seen and felt. Why else would title only appear at the end of the film?
Thanks, everyone. This is a film that obviously provokes very personal reactions in each viewer, and I’m dying for my own first glimpse at it...
"Moriarty" out.
