Netflix Instant Watch: Punch Drunk Love

Punch Drunk Love

    Adam Sandler has made several movies I would consider "good". From Happy Gilmore to  Grown Ups (the first one which had a little more story and heart than Grown Ups 2), the typical Sandler movie is heavy on jokes and light on drama. People call his movies lazy and uninspired and I think that is why they are so successful. Not every movie needs to be a think piece in the vein of 12 Years A Slave. That movie has it's place and the point I am trying to make is that so do Adam Sandler movies. They offer the moviegoer a chance at relaxing, laughing and not thinking about all the ills and pressures of their everyday life. There are a few good stories in there too. 50 First Dates is probably one of the most underrated movies he's made. The Wedding Singer is a smart, romantic, and fun movie. Even The Waterboy has something to offer to the public...even if it is Kathy Bates tackling what can only be a slightly mentally challenged man at her son's wedding.
    Paul Thomas Anderson on the other hand has made some truly great movies.  He's also drawn out some great performances from actors you may not have expected. Tom Cruise in Magnolia, Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights, and an Oscar winning performance from the always great Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood. The "I drink your milkshake" scene is perhaps one of my favorite moments in movie history. I think what makes him great as a filmmaker is that he makes movies about small moments in our lives that forever alter our existence.  I can't say he has a voice that reaches everyone but he speaks to me, and I don't think that I am so far above you guys to think you'd be utterly lost watching his movies. Which brings me to a movie I found on Netflix Instant Watch the other night. Punch Drunk Love is a short, intelligent movie about love and a lonely man pushed to extremes by 7 sisters, an incompetent staff at his business and a phone sex operator that refuses to go away. It is also a movie like Stranger than Fiction which takes a actor that has been put into a box and helps them show the depth and talent inside them.
    Barry Egan (Sandler) is a quiet lonely man whose only claim to fame is figuring out how to scam free airfare from American Airlines by buying pudding. He spends his time at his business (working out of a warehouse), dinners with his nagging sisters and his house where his only choice for a companion comes from a phone sex service that scams perverted men out of money. The truth is, Barry doesn't even want sexual release with these women, he just wants companionship and to know how their day was. Enter Lena (played by Emily Watson) who works with one of Barry's sister. She seems to see Barry in a different way, enjoys his odd ways and his obsessions. She doesn't care that he threw a hammer through a plate glass window or that he never knows the perfect thing to say. He loves her, completely and wholly and that empowers Barry to stand up to the people in his life and become a better man.
    Love, as I've always believed, empowers. You feel stronger, better, and all the dark parts of yourself that you hide goes into the background of your mind. You become lighter, easier to laugh. It is a delight to see someone in love because even in bad times, they have something in them that pushes them through. For people like me, the loveless, we envy that in people. We watch in horror as we get older and time shortens for us. Late nights aren't spent laughing and canoodling in bed, it is spent up, trying desperately to make a connection. Scared out of our minds that no one will see in us what makes us special. One moment in Punch Drunk Love sticks out to me. Barry flies to Hawaii to be with Lena and they end up in bed. As they lay over each other they have the following exchange:

Barry: I'm lookin' at your face and I just wanna smash it. I just wanna fuckin' smash it with a sledgehammer and squeeze it. You're so pretty.
Lena: I want to chew your face, and I want to scoop out your eyes and I want to eat them and chew them and suck on them.
[pause]
Barry: OK. This is funny. This is nice.

    You don't get it. I don't get it. This is not the type of conversation I would have with the woman I love. Barry and Lena get it. Barry and Lena understand what they are saying to each other. Barry and Lena see what they want in each other. They love each other. I had that for a moment and I know how good it feels. I've been chasing that high since she cut and ran. All I want, all I needed was there and now without her, I am powerless. Paul Thomas Anderson gets that feeling better than anyone I've ever seen. I've had friends watch this over the years and some of them can't finish it. Most of them have been in long fulfilling relationships and it makes me wonder that if they've never felt the loneliness and pain of a Barry Egan or your humble movie reviewer that you may not get what PT Anderson was trying to say. I do get it and I'd recommend that if you watch it, think back to a moment (and we all had them) when you thought you'd be alone forever. Maybe then, Barry and Lena's story will seem a little more relatable and you can understand how very lucky you really are.

Mr. Unhappy sez: Punch Drunk Love is an acquired taste. The story of how Barry Egan and Lena Leonard found each other is messy, dirty, sad, weird and just a little disturbing but it doesn't make it any less sweet or worthy.