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Film on the Internet: PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE (2002) on Amazon Prime

Posted By Grant Nebel ("wallflower") on August 1, 2016 in News | 76 Responses

Barry Egan is a pure Adam Sandler character:  emotionally stunted, prone to fits of rage and yelling, and with a real heart somewhere under it all.  Paul Thomas Anderson’s simple insight behind Punch-Drunk Love is that he has Sandler portray that honestly, and he films it honestly.  This kind of character isn’t so much a light-comic guy as someone who’s about two steps away from a nervous breakdown or killing spree.

Then, one day, a woman (Emily Watson) and a harmonium come into his life, and everything changes.  And I do mean everything:  the screen starts bursting into Jeremy Blake’s abstract color, Robert Elswit’s cinematography goes from blues to reds and yellows, Jon Brion’s score switches between noisy and goofy and swooning and never lets up, and a phone-sex call brings an uncontained Philip Seymour Hoffman (“SHUT, SHUT, SHUT, SHUT, SHUT UP”) into the world.

Anderson’s previous films (Hard Eight/Sydney, Boogie Nights, Magnolia) were sprawling works of plot and character, with psychological flourishes; here he reduced things down to one real character and went all in on the psychology.  Punch-Drunk Love is less a story than a cinematic poem, and it’s still one of the most astonishing things he ever did.  It’s a sorta fairytale.

Punch-Drunk Love streams free on Amazon Prime.

Posted in News | Tagged adam sandler, Emily Watson, Film on the Internet, Film on the Television, Jon Brion, Paul Thomas Anderson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Punch-Drunk Love, Robert Elswit

About the Author

luzzaschi27@aol.com'

Grant Nebel (“wallflower”)

A Silver Age (2007) commenter from the AV Club who crossed over to the Dissolve at its inception in 2013. You can follow his writings here and in the comment section at The Dissolve, and his music on his Soundcloud channel (see any Soundtracking here for that).

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