Barry Egan is a salesman who wears a bright blue suit
with a white shirt, and can frequently be spotted in
front of backgrounds composed primarily of blue and
white (like the two-toned wall of his self-owned
business). Clearly this is not your frat brother’s
Adam Sandler movie, even if Sandler plays Egan in a
manner similar to the rest of his starring roles; as a
shockingly violent man-child whose rants and property
destruction suggest a very deep case of self-loathing.
But compared to early Sandler protagonists like Happy
Gilmore or Billy Madison, Barry’s got a secret
weapon - the ability to articulate his despair, thanks
to a very intelligent script by writer / director Paul
Thomas Anderson. He gives Sandler a great film to act
in, and Sandler gives Anderson a performance that
proves he’s deserving of his success, if only in
hindsight.
Egan’s an oddball for sure, he wears that same suit
almost every moment of Punch-Drunk Love, for
reasons even he is unclear of. He runs his own
business and lives a very lonely life. But he’s a
bright guy; he’s making some money and he’s found
an incredible scheme where he can buy cheap pudding
cans and earn enough frequent flyer miles so he’ll
never have to pay for a plane ticket again. Of course,
Barry doesn’t like to travel, or have anywhere to
go, but that’s sort of inconsequential.
Punch-Drunk takes the Sandler archetype and
sort of deposits him in a world in which he has to
live and earn his own way (Most of his previous
characters lived with parents or were so wealthy they
didn’t have to work; a recurring theme in his films)
and his violent outbursts are tied to a specific area
of his life; his relationship with his seven sisters
who hound him, call him bad names, and eventually the
passive aggressiveness builds to the point where he
can’t take it and he explodes, destroying bathrooms
or breaking glass windows. This is a Happy Gilmore
whose actions have repercussions. This doesn’t
necessarily mean the film isn’t funny, it’s just a
different comedy; one that draws humor out of honest
reactions from Barry and from the strangeness of life
in general.
Barry’s life takes two simultaneous strange turns.
He meets Lena (Emily Watson) who is very interested in
dating the shy Barry, but just before this happens,
Barry calls up a phone sex line and winds up becoming
embroiled in a blackmail scheme that threatens to ruin
the budding relationship. Both of these angles play so
well off each other; Watson is adorable and really
looks like she loves Barry, and the phone calls Barry
keeps getting generates some great tension. Eventually
the two come to a head, and Barry reacts in an
unexpected, but completely logical, way that has you
practically cheering him on. And loathe as I am to
admit it, the film’s finale is so romantic I almost
got a little misty-eyed.
Anderson is the very talented director of Hard
Eight, Boogie Nights, and Magnolia,
and in Punch-Drunk his greatest secret weapon
is his usage of single takes so fluid and full of
action that you often forget that whole scenes are
passing by with a single cut. A lot of people use
single takes to be showy, like they have something to
prove; and often they wind up distracting from the
content. Anderson had his share of those shots (Going
into and out of the pool in Boogie Nights
anyone?), but here his choice of shots is always in
service of the story. My favorite moment is a scene
just after a character has landed in the hospital and
Barry stands a nervous watch at their bedside. The
camera pushes in and it looks like Barry is moving
toward the door without actually walking; as if he’s
being pulled by some invisible force, and in an
emotional way, he is.
The film’s only flaw is that with only 94 minutes of
film, we never get to know Lena the way we know Barry
and that makes her devotion to him harder to
understand than it should be. Still, I was charmed by
the visuals, stunned by the acting, and moved by the
romance. When the film ended and the credits rolled I
got that feeling that happens to me only when I watch
one of the very best movies; that I was ready to sit
in my seat and let the film reroll again in its
entirety. Yes, Adam Sandler the actor is a good thing.
Let’s hope he sticks around for some more films.
Judging from the previews for 8 Crazy Nights we
might not seem him again for a while.
