PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE - Since Monday, New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane has been posting a diary over at Slate. Tuesday's entry about the difficulty of the writing process was particularly relevant to me for two reasons. First, while I am usually content (or semi-content) with my finished product, whether it be an article, review or essay, the actual writing process is torturous. It always has been and surely always will be. As Lane so elegantly puts it: "There is a myth at large in the general population, easily quashable yet somehow allowed to persist, that writing comes smoothly, like gas from a pump, or at least unbidden, like tears. This is bull. No decent prose is ever dashed off, especially that which appears to be effortlessly dashing." One of my former journalism profs who used to work at the Chicago Sun-Times said the only writer he ever knew who could come in, sit down, and turn out something without putting himself through pure hell was Roger Ebert, which I guess helps explain why he is able to produce more reviews every week than probably any critic on the planet. The second reason is that it's now been more than a week since I saw P.T. Anderson's 'Punch-Drunk Love' and I'm still not sure how to articulate my reaction. It's a romantic comedy/Hollywood musical that features enough surreal wackiness that it could have been directed by David Lynch -- and I found it, in a word, exhilarating. OK, "exhilarating" may be tinged with a touch of hyperbole, but there are so many movies you see and think, "That was decent. I don't ever want to watch it again, but it was decent." With 'Punch-Drunk' I'm half tempted to shell out $8 to get another look at it. I actually can't recall the last time I felt as much genuine excitement sitting in the theater, not having any clue what was going to happen next and just being along for the ride. Stylistically, Anderson legitimately seems to be breaking new ground here, although one could posit that Wes Anderson has shown us these quirky camera compositions and even quirkier characters before. As you've all surely heard by now, the movie stars Adam Sandler as Barry Egan, a shy loser who is treated with so much indignity by his six overbearing sisters that it's easy to understand why he has a problem controlling his temper. He's like Bruce Banner from 'The Incredible Hulk'; he knows that letting his feelings show will only result in destruction (of sliding glass doors, restaurant bathrooms) so he continually tries to avoid any kind of conflict. His rather mundane life as a self-employed plunger salesman is disrupted one day when a somewhat amazing car accident -- the cause and consequences of which Anderson slyly never reveals -- somehow results in a small instrument similar to a piano being dropped on the street at his feet. The instrument, he learns, is known as a harmonium, and while Anderson is perhaps being a little too obvious here -- Barry is searching for harmony in his life -- the conceit is nevertheless an effective one. But 'Punch-Drunk' is ultimately a love story. Just as the harmonium arrives, Barry meets Lena (Emily Watson), a sweet, slightly peculiar woman who works with one of Barry's sisters. Sometime CS contributor Eric Baker saw the movie last night and I'm hoping that we can engage in some kind of a dialogue about it today because I'm still at a bit of a loss when it comes to explaining why 'Punch-Drunk' had me so enthralled. What I can say is that all of the hype surrounding Sandler's performance is legitimate, primarily because he abandons all of his trademark mannerisms -- no funny voices or goofy faces, and even his fits of rage are not Sandler-esque. For me his best scene occurs late in the film when he is trying to track down Lena's phone number. He calls his sister who, of course, is unable to simply fulfill his request and give him the number without badgering him. Finally, Barry can't take it anymore and yells, "Just give me the number. Just give me the fucking number! Give it to me!" But he does not explode in anger as we've seen him do in his previous comedies. He plays it more like a kidnapper demanding a ransom. Rather than being comical, his exclamation takes on an eery timbre and you immediately understand why his sister quickly complies. Despite all the talk of Sandler not being able to act and Anderson not being able to make anything but overblown, pretentious (to some) films like 'Magnolia' and 'Boogie Nights', 'Punch-Drunk Love' proves all of the doubters wrong. It's one of the best films of the year, even though I'd probably still rank it behind Anderson's three previous efforts -- which is either a testament to how good Anderson is as a filmmaker, or just how bad most movies are these days.
E-mail CinemaScoped@hotmail.com or start a discussion in the Feedback Forum