"Punch-Drunk Love" (2002) - Movie Review

I saw this movie when I was doing my Masters. That was the time I experimented in trying out new genre movies. When I finished watching during that time, I sure liked it, but as a movie goer I was not able to pick something and say this is what I loved about it. Now I bought the DVD and decided to watch again to see what exactly made me to like the movie. While I watched before, I had “Magnolia” in mind, another movie Paul Thomas Anderson directed. Hence I had the notion of expecting the whole movie as such as explanatory piece with some art work chipped inside it. But as I noticed this time, the whole movie as such is a complex modern art with simple colours.

Barry Egan (Adam Sandler) has some problems. He has seven sisters and most of them call him individually at his business place to ask whether he will go to the party. He has shaken up soda bottle waiting to burst open. He is made to feel like crap by his sisters. He does not want to be rude and at the same time, the tightened emotions make him do crazy things. He is constantly thinking on what to say. Sandler is perfect and he delivers the perfection. The movie appears to be out of normal. People might question the actions and happenings in it. Why some one does leaves a harmonium in the middle of a street? And why Barry is more intrigued by it than a live accident happening in front of him? May be Anderson wanted to us to see how his sisters see Barry. But he also makes us see through the kind, gentle and caring eyes of Lena (Emily Watson).

There is something insanely beautiful inside the face of Barry. This is what Lena thinks. Around her Barry seem to slowly shed his skin of hopeless liar. Barry tries to be extremely nice. He tries to lie too, but he is not good at it. The reason he likes Lena though is that she does not make him the “weirdo” his sisters have branded. She does think his actions are insane but her honesty in it is clear. She says what she thinks. And the intentions are not to hurt but to hint. Barry understands it. This connection makes him to face the worst fears not alone for him but for any one. He gets the courage to question the people who attack him since they got the details of him during his call to phone-sex line. He wants some one to talk and calls them. They in return do all possible threats to pay him. The guy who runs it is Mattress Man, Dean Trumbell (Phillip Seymour Hoffman). His reasoning apart from making money is that pervert people deserve to pay. But what Barry does not understand is that he paid for the service. The confrontation is amazing and so funny yet so emotional for Barry.

On the above two paragraphs, I guess many would have got the question is that the events are not so interesting to deliver something I praise. The way of making it is an unusual piece of art. The colour combinations, the lightings, the movement of the camera, the small scenes of unidentified love and the way it is getting recognized makes this an experience of enjoyment.
And the back ground score sets up the pace rather than the mood for a movie like this. The scene in which Lena comes along with Barry’s sister Elizabeth (Mary Lynn Rajskub) to meet Barry is truly hurried up and chaotic. Barry is trying to tackle the phone threats from the phone-sex company while his sister is asking too much question. And at the same time he likes Lena and wants not to have a bad idea about him. The score for that might appear quite rambling to interfere in the conversation but that’s exactly what it’s needed. For that time period, they make us feel what Barry feels. He is nervous, tensed and extremely fragile breaking inside slowly and hurtfully.

It is a Sandler’s career best portrayal of a character. He has played the insanely crude violent comical guy in his regular run of the mill comedy movies, but here the anger seems real and scary. The Barry we see looks like an unusual guy but he is the full form made of various pieces of frustration in every one. Every time we meet some one we do not particularly like but end up because of socialized pressure to be nice, we are Barry. And when we get mocked up and beat up to be speechless, we do want to break the window shield. Most of us do not because we believe it is not nice and control it. Barry thinks those too but he gone beyond his control and now instinctive. And the film is how he completely surrenders to a lady who he can be himself without breaking the windows.