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Not that he wasn't just fine in "The Wedding Singer", my personal favorite of the Sandler oeuvre. And even in his worst efforts he seems to possess a kind of rakish charm. But here he displays a range and depth that I did not think he was capable of.
Sandler plays Barry Egan, the pathetic owner of a small business and the only brother of seven sisters. Because of his sisters' abuse he has been unable to fall in love and remains alone. When he decides to call a phone sex line just to talk to someone he is blackmailed when the service's operator steals his credit card number. His fortunes take a turn for the better, however, when he finds a loophole that allows him to earn 1 million free frequent-flyer miles by purchasing $3,000 worth of pudding. A mysterious woman (Emily Watson) and a harmonium enter his life, and romance flourishes.
The interesting thing about Sandler's performance is that there are elements of his character that resemble some from previous movies. Sandler has played people on the fringe of society before. He has busted up bathrooms before. I'm sure at some point he may have even have bashed in some heads with a crowbar, something Barry does at a certain point. But one thing Sandler has not done that much of is be quiet. And "Punch Drunk Love" requires him to do that much of the time. Director Paul Thomas Anderson takes us for a trip deep inside Barry's soul and Sandler bravely lets him in.
This can be a risky endeavor. There is always a risk that the comedy can be too cutesy or the romance too off-putting. But here it's as if they compliment each other. It's as if Anderson is saying, "Hey, life is weird; haven't you noticed?"
Even when Barry is transformed by love it is done realistically. This is a guy who will always be a little out of step, love or no love.
I left "Punch Drunk Love" feeling good. Not like I had some saccharine treat stuffed down my throat. No, it was the kind of feeling you have after you've spent the evening in the company of old friends. I felt connected to the human race. Even if some of them, like Barry Egan in "Punch Drunk Love", are far from perfect.
That took me three years to figure out. Now I seem to be on a more assured track with writing. After a relatively short period of time(4 years) I have a regular weekly column in The South Philly Review in which I write movie reviews. I also write reviews for The Williamsport Sun Gazette in Williamsport, PA. My pieces have run on www.cdnow and on www.allmovie.com . I am also working on a screenplay that is best defined as a horror comedy." This is his first article for The World's Magazine.
PHILADELPHIA, PA, USA - "Punch Drunk Love" answers the question "What would happen if Adam Sandler, arguably one of biggest mouths in movies, were asked to keep his big fat trap shut?" The answer is that Sandler, when forced to rein in his usual mugging and frat party slapstick, is capable of giving a truly memorable performance.
Anderson, who won Best Director for earlier this year at Cannes, has pulled off a remarkable feat. "Punch Drunk Love" attempts to be a quirky character study and a romantic comedy simultaneously and it works.
BRETT S. HARRISON - Says of himself: "I am the personification of the Robert Frost poem about the road less travelled. I've always done my own thing. In 1988 I started doing standup comedy in one of the hardest places to do standup, Philly. Here if you don't open and close with a dick joke you go hungry. At the tryouts for The Aspen Comedy Festival in Boston in 1998 I realized I took that dream as far as I could. The manager gave me this look after my set like, "You came up here for this?". I took Web Design classes for a while and realized I was not a programmer nor an artist so I moved on from there.
WEB SITE PICK OF THE WEEK: "Information wants to be free," the saying goes. No Web site exemplifies that as much as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's OpenCourseWare site. MIT is offering many (most) of its courses free to you here on the WWW. Go feed your head!
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