Punch Drunk Love (2002)
Like a cinematic frayed nerve, "Punch
Drunk Love" is one of the most extraordinary films
you will ever see. P.T. Anderson cements his status
as America's most interesting and troubling filmmaker
with this love story set askew by a sock on the jaw.
(I mean that poetically more than actually).
Adam Sandler is a revelation as
Barry Egan, a quiet yet antsy, shy yet professional,
small-business-man whose life goes out of sync when
he calls a phone sex line. To set things thematically
back on kilter, he also meets a mousey yet attractive
girl and begins to date her.
Anderson's script is the starting
point for the genius that is displayed in the film.
Take, for example, his idea to make Egan the only
boy in a family of 8 siblings. His seven sisters here
appear early in the film and this points perfectly
at everything that is wrong with Egan's psyche. Sandler's
performance enunciates what Anderson writes here,
a troubled, shaken, frayed young man on the absolute
edge of going into deep depression and erupting into
horrible violence. Imagine a Fassbinder character
set lose in modern- day suburban California, and you've
got a very basic idea of what Anderson and Sandler
have crafted. Egan is tense, uptight, confused, beaten,
angry, sad and lonely yet he hides all off this with
an emotionless facade and a cheap blue suit.
This isn't the only thing in the
script that is purely brilliant and revelatory, but
why spoil the surprises Anderson's story has. It will
engross you from the first frame with its unique plotlines
and poetic situations and ideas. It is perfection.
After script and casting comes Anderson's
true gift, his filmmaking skills. "Punch Drunk Love,"
from the very first frame, sets your nerves on edge.
Anderson fills the film with bleak desolation and
immense silence only to have loud sound- effects blare
unexpectedly at the most surprising moments, shattering
any serenity that might have been attained. (This
is the perfect cinematic equivalent of Egan's existence,
again reinforcing the notion of being an only boy
to grow up with seven verbose and personable sisters).
When it comes to the audio portion of this film, what
is created is masterful. This film deserves an Oscar
for its sound design if nothing else. I have never
had a cinematic experience that was more complex and
troubling aurally in my life. (It helped that the
theater I attended had the digital sound cranked to
10). From the opening scene to the final moment in
the film, Anderson wracks our nerves and jangles our
senses with his sound work here. The depiction of
a life devoid of life, and by extension devoid of
sound, only to be filled with the most annoying and
abrupt blaring loudness is devastating to experience.
And Anderson's images are equally
profound and distinct. The use of blue here is nothing
short of brilliant. Anderson's first image, one of
Sandler sitting at a desk in a featureless office
corner, sets the perfect tone for the film that is
to follow. Often a focus shift is used/abused to show
us not only how distorted the lives we are witnessing
are but also just how close we are coming to them.
The scenarios and characters are so close to us, so
much in our laps, that our vision is blurred by their
close proximity. We are immersed, dipped into this
world. Anderson drenches us with it. Like the sound
design, it sets our nerves on edge. We are attracted
yet repelled.
Anderson also uses music and images
occassionally as underscores for emotions. A song
sung by Shelley Duvall (is this from "Popeye?") perfectly
accentuates Anderson's swerving into romantic drama
territory. The score by Anderson stalwart Jon Brion
is one of the most intense and perfect scores to ever
grace a cinematic experience. If this thing isn't
nominated for an Oscar, well... it should be. It is
perhaps the most perfect score to come down the pike
since the age of the musicals. It, too, like Anderson's
cinematic achievements, is revolutionary. (And this
doesn't even begin to discuss how the film is also
a deconstruction of the American romantic musical
genre).
P.T. Anderson is one of our most
important and complex American filmmakers. His unique
vision, his troubling characters, his skewed stories
and his ability to bring terse and disquieting thought
to the minds of his viewers is a capability few other
filmmakers have ever had. He is the new Fassbinder
of modern American cinema. His view of dysfunction
in the troubled lives of seemingly average Americans
is a view of the sickening underbelly of modern, upper-middle-class,
suburban existence in its utter banality and reality.
When it comes to suburban angst, "Punch Drunk Love"
is to romance what Todd Solondz's "Happiness" was
to sexuality.
Notes:
Also with Emily Watson, Phillip
Seymour Hoffman, Luis Guzman, and Robert Smigel.
Anderson was named Best Director
at Cannes for the film.
The pudding/frequent flyer mile
scenario in the film is based on a true incident.
Viewed in Austin in November 2002.
