There were many movies that I had rented from Blockbuster, but few had a story as memorable as Punch Drunk Love (2002). I was a 13-year-old in middle school who had a penchant for seeing every Adam Sandler movie. I’d even see the Happy Madison offshoots where Rob Schneider was the leader. To me, it was the pinnacle of comedy that all sought to be as brilliant as Happy Gilmore (1996). For that window, it felt like he was getting close. Even if he wasn’t, there was something about seeing them opening weekend in a packed house just laughing. It’s what cinema does best.
That may be why I remember during Winter 2002 cornering my aunt somewhere and asking if she’d take me to Hollywood to see Punch Drunk Love. As a regular connoisseur of The Los Angeles Times, I had seen the poster in the inked-up black and white with showtimes running in a box below. It’s how I learned about a lot of smaller films I’d never see as well as stay on top of the interminable countdown to the big hits. While she was kind enough to take me out to see the concurrent release of Eight Crazy Nights (2002), the film would remain a white whale of sorts.
It was insane to think that Sandler was finally getting his due. My preteen mind had been convinced he was deserving of more acclaim than he got. This would be his moment. Given that I don’t think I actively sought out any film that wasn’t a guaranteed populous hit at the time, I don’t think I was ready for it. I thought I could be but as everyone called it strange and esoteric, I became intrigued by it all.
And so one night early into its DVD release, I rented it from Blockbuster. The anticipation was high. As I pressed play and saw Barry Egan sitting in that vacant office, I was exposed to a lot of techniques for the first time. I was seeing the artful use of spatiality. There was something to the silence that felt new and bothered my attention-addled mind. I could recognize the dread of being on a phone call, but I couldn’t understand why anything was happening. Cars were flipping down the street and the lead actor from the TV show Luis randomly showed up. Why was the backdrop of sky so blinding?
I’m sure my mind wasn’t processing things in more nuanced terms. I personally believe that I didn’t become a more challenged thinker for another 13 years. Even then, I was witnessing something strange and new. I hadn’t seen Sandler go this long without a noticeable slapstick joke. There wasn’t one line in the phone conversation that warranted a chuckle. There was was a man in a warehouse that felt so nondescript that it felt cheap. Where was the fantasy and escapism?
More importantly, the one downside of Blockbuster (or any video rental service) is the risk of customer handling. Anyone who has rented or purchased used media will have their own stories of having something that was cracked or scratched. I once got an extra box set of The Simpsons because 1 of 4 discs was broken. In this case, Punch Drunk Love didn’t get too far into the tale – I would hedge bets it didn’t get past the title card – before it suddenly performed that dreaded freeze. The image distorted and soon the next two hours were spent in a panic trying to wash out the fingerprints and pray that the scratches weren’t the problem. Given that I was 13 and this was several hours into the night, Blockbuster would have to wait. The internet of 2002 wouldn’t suffice. We were still on dial-up and by the time a hypothetical download would finish, I’d have woken up and just gotten a replacement disc.
There’s a complicated relationship that comes with missing Blockbuster. I think for me it’s less the organization and more that consuming art used to feel like a process that sometimes had hiccups in the road. Outside of a power shortage, what is stopping you from consuming any art in history right this second? For someone who had been craving Punch Drunk Love for months at that point, the extra 12 hours was painful. It also gave the experience more meaning as it meant I would always remember that scratched disc of death. The only thing from here was to hope Blockbuster didn’t put me on a waiting list because the good copy was out.
I’m sure people could imagine what it was like in 2002 for Adam Sandler to step away from juvenile comedies like the recent nadir of his career Little Nicky (2000) and do something serious. However, I don’t think anyone could fully appreciate what happened without noticing how much of a curveball this was. Director Paul Thomas Anderson was coming off of an impressive 90s run of Oscar-nominated films like Boogie Nights (1997) and Magnolia (1999). He wasn’t a Dennis Dugan type just doing throwaway comedies. There was a sense of his lofty potential which, even as the lead-up to his career-defining There Will Be Blood (2007), came across as this weird tone piece. It was dreamlike and opaque. It was high art. Sandler could never be accused in 2002 of making high art. Why his most recent film featured reindeers defecating.
As a 13-year-old from a Catholic school, Punch Drunk Love was never going to make sense. Even as I read the Entertainment section religiously of The Los Angeles Times, I wasn’t exactly “part of the culture.” I was processing the surface of it. There weren’t a lot of deep dives on themes and analysis. Everything I read steered more towards journalism. Outside of Roger Ebert on Sundays, I don’t think I got that much nuance. Thousands of art films had been released prior, but this was to be the first that had any impact on me.
This was my first exposure to Paul Thomas Anderson which, even then, wasn’t a filmmaker I’d worship until The Master (2012) a decade later. This was merely a strange film that I struggled to make heads or tails of. I wasn’t one to watch a lot of dramas at the time, so a lot of the more serious material went over my head. There was something alarming about hearing Barry talk to a phone sex worker in such graphic detail. I wasn’t sure why he was travelling to Hawaii. What was the deal with all the colors? The abstraction kept me from loving it though, unlike a lot of people when confronted with challenging art, I became perplexed enough to dig further.
There were the many special features on the disc, including the short Couch. I understood those even less. Even as adults around me discussed their appreciation, I was left not being sure what this peek into the adult world was. Why was he being beaten up in the parking lot? It’s probably where I first discovered Philip Seymour Hoffman which… is not a terrible way to go. Any film that finds a man so magnificently yelling “shut the fuck up” repeatedly to a phone can’t be all bad. But still, what did any of this mean? What’s up with the pudding?
I should mention that this is far from my favorite Anderson film. In spite of being the one that has existed in my subconscious the longest, there are ones that have resonated with me a lot more directly. Maybe it’s by design, as Punch Drunk Love is intentionally a beguiling work that doesn’t have clean answers. I don’t get the sense that Anderson was at a good place mentally when he made it. He was digging into corners of his mind that were maybe a bit unclear and hoping to make sense of them with symbols. The choice to cast America’s biggest buffoon in the lead role as a tragicomic figure helped to keep the sadness from totally veering into unpleasantness. There is a sense that he’ll pull through less because he’s strong but because he has to.
As I’ve aged, there’s become something mesmerizing about the punch drunk nature of the atmosphere. I personally love how disorienting and romantic the Jon Brion score is and how it sometimes acts like the subconscious pulse of Barry’s weary soul. The use of Shelley Duvall’s “She Needs Me” also adds something haunting less because the song is creepy but more of its contrast to a clearly depressing tone. There’s a lot of ideas that exist within this swirling cloud and I am in awe now of where he goes with a lot of it. Even then, I can’t say that it’s the clearest film he's ever made. I’d argue he had a bad run of luck between Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, and The Master of being intentionally at arm’s distance. We’re allowed to glimpse into his uncomfortable psyche so long as we don’t ask personal questions afterward.
Throughout my youth, I’m sure that I had seen a handful of arthouse films. It’s inevitable that something would’ve come up even in the days before I acquired cable. Even then, by virtue of having the one actor I actively sought out to the point I spent many afternoons on his website, Punch Drunk Love was a formative starting point. I wouldn’t say there was any permanence in the immediate sense. However, I have found many in my generation who share that love for the ominous undertones. Even as Sandler has made a handful of serious films, it’s not often that this one is ignored. I’d argue the complaints around him being robbed of an Oscar are blown out of proportion (arthouse never gets its due).
Besides that, I think it’s interesting how it functions simultaneously as the dark horse of Anderson’s career but the sign of hope for Sandler’s. Many came out of the film eager to see him do challenging work and were disappointed when he went back to boilerplate Happy Madison schtick. For decades now, the debate on whether comedy is harder than drama remains the biggest defense of Sandler’s trajectory. It’s even a talking point on his new stand-up special Love You. However, I think Punch Drunk Love shows the versatility of what happens when a comedic force exists in contrast to a despairing world. There is a film where Barry punching out glass panes would be a gut-buster. However, I think Anderson finds way to contrast it with a deep internal pain that causes one to act out. Much like how I consider Albert Brooks in Drive (2011) as being “without the punchline,” this is Sandler without the laughter. When nobody’s recognizing your struggles, it can be haunting.
That may be why the love at the center of the film works in its own perverted way. It’s a love that would take me many years to process, but I think reflects the gift of quixotic cinema. Sometimes it’s best not to reveal all your cards. If the audience has a reason to come back, then the art has done its job. Punch Drunk Love is strange. Even as I ask an endless barrage of questions, I’m capable to just take everything in and appreciate the execution. This is what art has the potential to be. It may not be for everyone. I wouldn’t have been in a packed theater getting that annual communal laugh, but I would get something that makes returning to cineplexes meaningful.
Nowadays, arthouse is a genre that regularly informs my diet. I can’t imagine where the journey would’ve been had Sandler not starred in this. This is precisely why I’m not more critical of the gimmicky Sundance films where big name actors star in obtuse genre exercises. For as much as I didn’t like The Skeleton Twins (2014), there was still something in telling a story that wasn’t for the populous. It was an invitation to go off the beaten path and find something provocative and new. Not every piece of art will change your life. It could just be that it’s become too convenient to find and thus removes days and months of anticipation. There’s no journey to it anymore. I benefit from this model, but it’s also in part because nobody’s selling anymore. There are still theaters, but there is a need to give arthouse the chance to compete. Like Barry Egan, they’ll never really win. So long as one person expresses their love for them, there will be hope for the future and an eternal memory of trying to see something truly amazing.
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