punch drunk (pûnch_ drûngk_) adj. 1. Showing signs of brain damage caused by repeated blows to the head. 2. Behaving in a bewildered, confused, or dazed manner.
Enter the mind of Barry Egan, a mild-mannered businessman of thirty-something whose seven pushy sisters have battered him into a state of emotional paralysis.
“Remember when we used call you ‘gay boy?'” one asks him at a family gathering. “You used to get so mad!”
Barry’s pent-up social frustrations torment him, manifesting themselves in sobbing episodes and thinly veiled cries for help. At any given point in his day, Barry is on the brink of a violent emotional breakdown.
Barry’s tattered, love-starved psyche is the delicate lens through which director Paul Thomas Anderson filters “Punch-Drunk Love,” the 32-year-old writer-director’s fourth full-length effort. Adam Sandler gives life to Barry, a walking downward-spiral who falls for Lena, his doe-eyed sympathizer played by Emily Watson.
“Punch-Drunk” is a true departure for Anderson, whose gaudy San Fernando Valley epics “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia” won him acclaim as a film making boy-wonder. Both were engaging character pieces, pirouetting carousel-like from psychological breakdown to moral lapse to cocaine binge and back again.
When Anderson announced the production of “Punch-Drunk Love,” his first romantic comedy which would star Adam Sandler, the critical film community ushered the word “sellout” to the tip of its tongue. Few could imagine the inventor of Dirk Diggler and Roller Girl composing hokey dialogue for “Mr. Deeds” and his bubbly object of affection.
On the contrary. As “Punch-Drunk” unfolds, Anderson quickly dispels any accusations of a cash-in. In all of its painful introversion, this film represents the anti-romantic comedy, anything but a mainstream boy-meets-girl. Anderson’s caricature of love is real and true, effectively evoking the elements of panic, hysteria and self-loathing that lurk in the depths of love’s approach.
Like Anderson’s previous efforts, “Punch-Drunk” draws desolation and desperation from its setting, the San Fernando Valley. The Valley’s trashy, depressing ambience is an excellent foil for Barry’s often dream-like interpretation of reality. Nowhere else is this transposition so evident as when a mysterious taxi-van deposits an old harmonium keyboard on the litter-drenched pavement at Barry’s warehouse of novelty plungers.
John Brion’s woozy, waltzing score amounts to an essential character, perfectly mirroring the intoxicating effects of Lena’s love on Barry. The teetering “He Needs Me” from the 1980 film “Popeye” is the only section of the “Punch-Drunk” score not to be composed by Brion, who deserves an Oscar nomination for his contribution.
Once again, Philip Seymour Hoffman reveals himself as one of cinema’s finest character actors in his portrayal of phone-sex pimp Dean Trumbell. Unfortunately, Hoffman’s honed skills may have prompted Anderson to flesh out his fringe character to the detriment of the overall film, but too much Philip Seymour Hoffman is an excellent problem for a film to have.
When the chips fall, “Punch-Drunk Love” is tremendous. Without taxing Sandler’s ability, Anderson deftly redirects Sandler’s finest quality: his brilliant, relatable human decency for good rather than evil (aka “The Waterboy”). As honest and fearless as real love itself, “Punch-Drunk” is the most inventive and beautiful love story since Woody Allen’s best, “Annie Hall.” Paul Thomas Anderson should re-invent himself more often.