Thursday, Feb 8, 2018 • 26min
Ep. 97 – Punch Drunk Love
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We join Adam Sandler as a man who grapples with anger issues and a potentially child-like development of selfhood. Wait…that’s most Sandler movies right? Well, in Punch Drunk Love, the Sandler archetype gets a little bit of a grimmer iteration. It’s at once the epitome and antithesis of what we would call a Sandler-movie. Hooray for breaking down binaries!
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(2)
Ed
Dr. Zed
Transcript
Verified
Ed
00:01
Welcome to The Criterion Correction.
Share
00:05
My name is Ed.
Share
Dr. Zed
00:07
And I'm Dr. Barry Zed.
Share
Ed
00:10
In this podcast, we'll be living deep in
The Criterion Collection
of films trying to figure out what exactly it says about cinema as a whole and what makes a movie worthy if you add to the collection, join us as we decide, should we collect them all? This week with Paul Thomas Anderson
back in theaters with his new film, the Oscar-nominated
Phantom Thread
.Share
00:30
We're looking back at his 2002 collaboration with
Adam Sandler
, Punch-Drunk Love.
Share
00:45
Hello.
Share
Dr. Zed
00:47
Ah, thanks for calling the Mattress Mart.
Share
Ed
00:49
Who are you?
Share
Dr. Zed
00:51
My name is Jack.
Share
Ed
00:53
Jack. I'm here, direct vengeance upon you.
Share
Dr. Zed
00:59
Okay, is this a referral to a product that you may have purchased from us?
Share
Ed
01:04
You've given bad customer service and I have taken a vow to wreak vengeance on all who give bad customer service.
Share
Dr. Zed
01:14
Sorry, sorry I had the headset off for a moment. What was that? Can you start from the beginning?
Share
Ed
01:18
See that? That's exactly what I'm talking about. You get bad customer service and so you will suffer the wrath of customer service man.
Share
Dr. Zed
01:27
I couldn't quite make that out. What was that last part? Sounds like your voice is kind of gravelly and broken up. You might want to get like a
lozenge
.Share
Ed
01:33
I said I am customer service man.
Share
Dr. Zed
01:37
Thanks for calling Mattress Mart. We'll see you next time. I'm glad we could be of help. Please feel the review after this, you know.
Share
Ed
01:42
No, you do not hang up on me. You do not hang up on me.
Share
Dr. Zed
01:47
Yeah, we really appreciate your loyal customer survey. Yeah.
Share
Ed
01:51
Look, you at least have a survey I can take?
Share
Dr. Zed
01:53
No. Is it good or is it bad? What do you think?
Share
Ed
01:56
That was terrible service.
Share
01:58
You really need to do better in your role-playing. You never know when a costume superhero is going to call you on the phone. This is gonna be a part of your performance evaluation.
Share
Dr. Zed
02:08
Okay, well, that's fine.
Share
02:10
I'm hanging up now, bye.
Share
Ed
02:11
Just hung up on your boss?
Share
Dr. Zed
02:13
I'm a terrible customer service reps. So what the hell do I care?
Share
Ed
02:17
Well, and equally terrible, will probably be, poetic plot.
Share
02:21
Barry Egan is very odd. He has sudden bouts of rage. Seven sisters who always proud and purchasing habits strange.
Share
02:31
But he meets with Lena who works with his sister Elizabeth. Barry first takes a dim view of this, but tries to give love new breath. Against all odds, he succeeds in attracting Lena and is invited for a good kiss, goodnight.
Share
02:46
Being a victim of a
phone sex
scam does prove distracting though, and it finds him robbed and beat up in a fight. To escape, he follows Lena to Hawaii
and again, seems to succeed in romance.Share
02:59
Their return trip does soon go awry. When they're beset by the robbers on a second chance. Barry dispatches all and drives to
Utah
to make the ringleader put it all to rest.Share
03:11
Lena accepts him back into her life, to begin a new love affair, hopefully for the best.
Share
03:18
So, as I was watching this for actually now the second time it occurs to me that you really have to buy into three things in order to enjoy this film. You need to find
Sandler's
character relatable. You need to connect to a tone that I'm gonna call Magical Realism
even though it isn't.Share
03:41
And we can talk about what that tone actually is. But regardless the very strange tone this is aiming for and you have to believe in the romance between him and
Emily,
not Emma
, Watson.
For me, it goes about two for three. How does it go for you?Share
Dr. Zed
04:01
Two out of three ain't bad. No, I think it's about two out of three for me as well there.
Share
Ed
04:07
Alright well, so let's work backwards, which is the one that is the one out of three?
Share
Dr. Zed
04:14
The love attraction relationship thing.
Share
Ed
04:17
Ironically enough, that's actually the same for me.
Share
Dr. Zed
04:20
Why ironically? I think that makes the most sense for what not to buy into in this movie.
Share
Ed
04:25
Why didn't you buy into it?
Share
Dr. Zed
04:27
Essentially, I just never really understood the relationship between the characters other than she saw a photo of him?
Share
04:37
Is that was that the catalyst? But for all of this?
Share
Ed
04:40
I believe so. Yes.
Share
Dr. Zed
04:42
Okay, so she saw a photo, she comes and drops off her car early one morning after a car flips over and the piano is left in the street. Sorry, yeah, harmonium is left in the street.
Share
Ed
04:56
That is an accurate recounting of what happens.
Share
Dr. Zed
04:59
Sorry. You know, actually, I know I've even just lost the entire threat of the romance because it's that type of movie. It's just that insane that I don't really understand how to follow its logic at points.
Share
Ed
05:10
I think my thing with the romance is, say what you will about
Sandler's
character, it is fully sketched out. He's definitely very odd and very awkward, but you know who he is and what he's about. Well, true. He is very much about plungers.Share
05:29
So to have someone be romantically interested in them in him. You have to believe that either she's as strange as he is or she is a good complement to him. And I think the film kind of wants you to believe both. And I'm not really sure I believe either.
Share
Dr. Zed
05:52
Well, I guess it might be that sort of magical quality in assuming, oh, hey, everyone has a soulmate out there and this is clearly his.
Share
Ed
06:01
Yeah. But I maintain the film doesn't really do very much to believe. The one place that I think it kind of works is when they're in the hotel room in
Hawaii
and they're talking about like smashing each other's face and like eating, the other's eyes.Share
Dr. Zed
06:21
So they both have like rage issues.
Share
Ed
06:24
I don't think she has rage issues or at least none that are demonstrated. She has like weird fetishes. I don't know what you would call it, but that's really the only place where I believe she is as weird as he is.
Share
06:40
I think the costuming wants you to believe they're complementary with him always in that blue or indigo suit and her in like various shades of red, I think almost throughout the film, which obviously complement each other.
Share
06:53
But again, I don't see that in the writing of
Emily Watson's
character.Share
Dr. Zed
06:58
It was weird for me just because it felt so sudden in some ways.
Share
07:03
I mean this movie doesn't have a very extensive runtime and her introduction is so immediate and then you left to grapple with what is the relationship with these guys sisters and- Okay, I think one thing that just has to be noted for this is the sound design in this movie is just intentionally trying to drive you nuts.
Share
Ed
07:26
I'm not sure drive you nuts is what I would say, but it's definitely not subtle.
Share
Dr. Zed
07:33
What do you mean not subtle? It's just always the cacophony of all of these noises.
Share
Ed
07:39
That is definitely a thing that happens throughout the film. And I don't know, I guess you could read that as kind of how annoying
Sandler's
character is at different points.Share
Dr. Zed
07:50
I just trying to take it as like the overall in nature of the world around this character for him and sort of the overwhelming anxiety that creates these outbursts. It's like the rising tension.
Share
08:02
But even then, just in terms of following the movie, sometimes there's like I can't follow this movie just because I can't really hear what the characters are even saying, and man, it was just, it was almost like oral motion sickness.
Share
Ed
08:15
I didn't get that out of it. But I do agree with you that he is pretty much constantly beset throughout the film either by his workplace, by customer service representatives, by his sisters, by the
phone sex
operator, or by Lena. Look, I mean at least so Lena, but he is basically constantly under siege throughout the film.Share
Dr. Zed
08:40
I suppose, but even then at his workplace it's he's under siege by his sisters. I mean the people he works with, you know, seem to overlook these weird characteristics that it's kind of, you know, like almost, oh hey, he's found his niche.
Share
Ed
08:58
Well, that gets to the tone because I mean there's a lot of weird things about this film, and again,
Magical Realism
is the closest I've been really able to come to a description and I'm not satisfied with that.Share
09:13
But it's this is very odd thing where there are characters who will acknowledge that some of these things are odd, but for the most part, they kind of just take it as a matter of course.
Share
Dr. Zed
09:26
What's the relationship between him and his sisters?
Share
Ed
09:28
Not good. I think that's pretty clear.
Share
Dr. Zed
09:31
Why they want him to come to that party?
Share
Ed
09:34
Because he, because isn't it a birthday party? He's their brother.
Share
Dr. Zed
09:38
And he smashes their windows.
Share
09:41
Not that I blame them.
Share
Ed
09:42
I do enjoy, is a slight tangent, but I do enjoy. This is the rare film where the message of isn't you know, extinguish your anger, but more use your anger for a righteous cause.
Share
Dr. Zed
09:57
I guess so.
Share
09:58
I mean it's interesting just because, you know, he's in the movie
Anger Management
and this is very much more Anger Management
.Share
Ed
10:08
Well, it is certainly a way of managing anger, but I never saw that movie so I can't really comment. Maybe it is a masterpiece.
Share
Dr. Zed
10:16
I feel like I'm completely just fragmented, but that's kind of appropriate for this movie.
Share
Ed
10:21
I mean how so, I mean, again, this film is if anything but typical but I'm not sure, fragmented the word I would use for it.
Share
Dr. Zed
10:32
It comes together in the end, but it's just there seems to be so much random happenings. You have all these random assortment of pieces with the pudding, the delay, with even the
phone sex
. And I mean clearly when they asked for a social security number
, it was like, oh Lord, this is gonna be not good.Share
10:54
And then
Philip Seymour Hoffman's
character shows up and I figured he would make at least one more appearance, but then he disappears and then Sandler
goes to Hawaii
and it's, I don't know, I'm just kind of befuddled.Share
Ed
11:11
Maybe it's because this is my second time watching it, granted, not for several years since the first time, but I didn't really have at least that particular problem with it. Again, it's a question of do you accept the tone that it's setting and for what it's worth.
Share
11:30
I remember my first time watching it, I didn't, or at least it was between not accepting the tone and not really getting behind
Sandler
as a character in addition to the romance angle. I remember kind of disliking it. This time though, I don't know it again, two out of three did work for me.Share
Dr. Zed
11:50
Well, I definitely had sympathy towards
Sandler's
character and I could definitely, especially in the beginning to sort of sympathize with a person who's just very clearly out of their league and I suppose what kind of hampered that is, I wasn't ever settled into what had kind of like befallen him?Share
12:12
I mean, it wasn't that he was like massively successful. Is this the response of just being lonely or being sort of awkward in the world and not having that complementary part and the movie itself, when you talk about accepting his tone.
Share
12:27
It's very unsettling. I mean this is not a movie that you ever relax in and I think that is interesting in a way, but it certainly makes it so that enjoyment is not necessarily the term I would use when I'm viewing it. It's sort of always kind of like on edge of what kind of, what kind of noisy cacophony is going to happen next.
Share
Ed
12:49
With
Sandler's
character, I think this time I really keyed into why I didn't like it the first time because he's very awkward and that reminds me of myself. So I don't like seeing myself on screen. But I think the core of him, I think you did kind of hit on it.Share
13:08
He is very lonely, he is very awkward and he has these sisters who just will never let any failing that he has, go. So there's no real escaping his past because they will let him forget every weird, odd thing that he does and they're constantly trying to get into his business presumably out of love. But it manifests itself as just this nagging and it results.
Share
13:40
And I'm kind of going a little bit crazy. I mean if you think about the first two times, he has his anger spasms in the film. It's directly in either relation to, well, no, that both of them are in relation to something that his sisters either say or have told someone else.
Share
Dr. Zed
13:58
Yeah, I can never get a total beat on what the motivation of the sisters, like what it was.
Share
Ed
14:03
Because you don't have siblings, I love my sister and I only have one of them, not six, but I think there is definitely, basically I would say if I were reading it from their point of view, it's teasing, it's this teasing that you do to, a little brother.
Share
14:20
But the way that's actually received is mildly abusive.
Share
Dr. Zed
14:25
So he breaks their windows.
Share
Ed
14:27
Vengeance is mine.
Share
Dr. Zed
14:29
I mean that that kind of is sort of you know like you said one of the morals turn your anger to a righteous cause like taking out those blonde brother.
Share
Ed
14:37
I vaguely remembered that it didn't end the way that I wanted it to in my head, but I kind of wanted him to get into a fistfight with
Philip Seymour Hoffman
instead they just have to yell obscenities.Share
Dr. Zed
14:49
Yeah, I also wanted that, I wanted him to really like go after
Philip Seymour Hoffman
, but then also that wouldn't have resonated as well, that would have been sort of like untrue and even throwing it into this like- As much as I'm kind of like weirdly feeling this film and maybe not the way it's intended, I think that would have really kind of ruined it if he had actually gotten into that final fight but when it came down to the brothers and you know, Lena getting injured, that was sort of like the crowning moment of awesome in the movie for him taking that anger and just being like we're not going to get this one over on me.Share
Ed
15:27
Well and this may be an entirely wrong read, but I was almost reading the film as almost a satire of
romantic comedies
because you have all of these very odd tropes that in like your typical rom-com
are not acknowledged as odd unless they're being postmodern
about it.Share
15:51
Here they are. And it stands out in contrast. And again, I'm not sure if that was intended, and yeah, of course, it doesn't matter if it was intended or not, but I don't know do you think I'm completely off base with that?
Share
Dr. Zed
16:04
No, I don't because it would be interesting to sort of like go back in a second viewing of this and chart out the beats it has in comparison to a more quote-unquote "standard
rom-com
." And I think that some of that would line up that if this was played in a different way by different characters, then you would see this-Share
16:25
I get like, who's the actor that's
Paul Blart
?Share
Ed
16:30
Kevin James
.Share
Dr. Zed
16:32
Yeah, you'd almost have like a
Kevin James-style
film here.Share
16:37
I like the loser goofball who manages to overcome the odds and win in the end.
Share
Ed
16:44
The day that a
Kevin James
movie makes it into The Criterion Collection
is the day we end this show. I'm putting that out there right now.Share
Dr. Zed
16:55
I don't know, I mean if
Sandler
can get in then there's hope.Share
Ed
16:60
Yeah,
Sandler
has gotten a really bad rep
in the last couple of decades and I won't say it's undeserved. I can honestly say they're at least a couple of Sandler
films that I have some affection for. Is there any that kind of fit into that category for you or have you just always been a Sandler
hater?Share
Dr. Zed
17:20
No, there's some that I enjoyed previously. I mean
Happy Gilmore
is just plain dumb, but I had enjoyment for it at a certain point in my life. The Wedding Singer
is also an interesting one.Share
17:34
It's nothing even against him in particular. I think it has to do with the style of movie he's become attached to and this is a diversion from that and that's great. And so it's not that I immediately went into this thinking that, you know, this sucks because
Adam Sandler's
in it as much as I would joke about that.Share
Ed
17:57
I also, you know, a lot of people have already told me how they think, oh, this is an example what saying they can do when he's not tied down by a bad script or bad movie. And to that, I mean I enjoyed the performance, but it wasn't anything I don't know. It didn't necessarily have nuance, but it's not necessarily one that called for nuance.
Share
18:17
I don't know.
Share
Dr. Zed
18:20
So interestingly enough, the films that you mentioned, you have affection were actually the same ones that I like of
Sandler
as well and I think the popular read on him and Punch-Drunk Love
, which I do agree with is it's kind of almost deconstructing anybody playing "Criterion Correction bingo."Share
18:41
There's your space, his screen persona because a lot of his characters are defined by their anger or their angry outbursts, and here that is used not for, well, actually no, with the possible exception of the last one, none of them are really played for laughs and they're played to contrast this very repressed character otherwise. And I think it works.
Share
19:10
I think a more recent film where that also kind of works is
The Meyerowitz Stories
on Netflix where he's actually in a film where Ben Stiller
is his brother and this sounds like a laugh riot and there actually are a lot of laughs, but there is a soul to him and again it uses his anger or his angry persona to good effect because it is in contrast to who he is the rest of the time as opposed to just being kind of a default mode.Share
Ed
19:43
Okay, I can buy that reasoning then. You brought me around a little bit closer here.
Share
Dr. Zed
19:50
This is a film that I did not enjoy it all the first time, again, because I think just the
Sandler
character or just the night that I was watching, it just did not connect to me, but I don't know, I vibe onto this movie this time.Share
Ed
20:04
Yeah, I wouldn't quite say I vibe onto it, but again, it was my first viewing and I pretty quickly figured out that it was going to be, not what I would typically expect as
Sandler
movie.Share
20:17
But even then I think just cacophony, that's the word that keeps coming back to me visually and orally with the sort of lens flare light burst that continually like broke into the scenes.
Share
20:28
Then I'm sure there was some sort of attachment there, but it was just so many things were happening that it kind of almost drifted to the point of a noise emphasis and like, you know, a signal to noise ratio.
Share
Dr. Zed
20:45
Well, I mean we didn't talk about like the most important part of this movie.
Share
Ed
20:50
And what are you stipulating is the most important part of the movie.
Share
Dr. Zed
20:53
Luis Guzman
.Share
Ed
20:55
Oh yeah, he's good.
Share
Dr. Zed
20:57
Yeah, yeah, that was he was, yeah, he was in it.
Share
Ed
21:01
I don't even feel the need to usually note that because he's just in everything.
Share
Dr. Zed
21:06
That's true. That's true. But yeah, he was in it.
Share
Ed
21:11
He may very well be on this recording for all I know.
Share
Dr. Zed
21:14
Oh, everywhere, positively everywhere.
Share
Ed
21:16
Yeah,
Luis Guzman
is good in this and of course, we've already referred to him. But Philip Seymour Hoffman
is great in this. I recently by coincidence, I've seen him in like three films in the last two weeks and it is a tribute to how much we lost when he passed away that all three characters are so different but rich in their own ways.Share
Dr. Zed
21:42
All I have to say is that he just hit his pinnacle in
Twister
.Share
Ed
21:46
I kind of forgot that he was in
Twister
.Share
Dr. Zed
21:51
Everyone forgot he wanted everyone to forget. No one wants to be remembered for being in
Twister
.Share
Ed
21:57
And now you remind me that
Bill Paxton
is dead too.Share
Dr. Zed
22:01
Oh gosh. I know, I know.
Share
Ed
22:05
Well, on that note of sadness, we're going to move into the corner and cry a little bit.
Share
Dr. Zed
22:12
With that, we're gonna move into our final segment, "Collect Them All or Not at All." Is this movie a punch-drunk kind of love or is this movie punch
Adam Sandler
?Share
Ed
22:22
I was gonna yell at you for stealing my line but it was a good, that was a good bit. Five comedy points.
Share
22:30
Well, since you asked me, I'll go first this time.
Share
22:34
So I've seen all of
Paul Thomas Anderson's
films except one and this is probably my least favorite of them just to be completely honest.Share
22:42
But on this revisit, I found a lot more to appreciate about the film than I did in my first go-round. Again, I think the film demands you accept a lot with its odd to describe tone.
Share
22:53
It's painfully awkward lead and it's possibly underdeveloped central relationship, but if you're willing to give yourself over to it, I think there's much admiration that can be had of its craftsmanship, and even sometimes, it's comedy, it's on a short list of
Adam Sandler
films that I don't need to feel shame in liking.Share
Dr. Zed
23:14
Well for me you've convinced me that I probably would like to see more of this director's work in the future. And I didn't dislike this movie with any kind of vitriol behind it.
Share
23:25
I think I was a little bit more confused and a little unsettled and it's almost as though if you're not quite sure what you're getting into and you're greeted with a movie that makes you feel sort of anxious because of that extreme awkwardness for its entire run time.
Share
23:41
Well, that gets to be a little wearying.
Share
23:46
And so the movie itself is one that I'm glad I watched. It gave me a few things to think about. It had some interesting components to it. But overall I have to come back to that point of just the noise of it that it seemed like there was a lot of it both literally and figuratively. And as a result, it's not one that I would add to my personal collection, but It's certainly one I might revisit eventually.
Share
Ed
24:14
Excellent. And I'm glad you say that this has made you want to check out more of
Paul Thomas Anderson's
work because none of his other films are all like thisShare
Dr. Zed
24:24
Cool, this was his experimental stage and you know, he went through with the
Adam Sandler,
and afterwards he decided to you know, I don't know.Share
Ed
24:32
Daniel Day-Lewis
and Adam Sandler
both the same because they both lead actors and PTA
Films.Share
Dr. Zed
24:40
I couldn't tell them apart if you asked me to.
Share
Ed
24:43
Because you don't know who
Daniel Day-Lewis
is.Share
Dr. Zed
24:46
I do, I mean I saw
Gangs of New York
.Share
Ed
24:49
Yep, the one that everybody remembers him for,
Gangs of New York
.Share
Dr. Zed
24:54
Hey, I'll never forget that torment.
Share
Ed
24:58
But if our listeners would like to yell at Dr. Z for dissing
Martin Scorsese
, tell us about PTA
, or the real PTA
. How could they do so?Share
Dr. Zed
25:11
The
parent-teacher association.
Share
Ed
25:13
Also his initials.
Share
25:15
It's a pun.
Share
Dr. Zed
25:17
Oh, okay.
Share
25:19
So multiple PTA is going on here. Well, they can reach out to us on Instagram. We are @ criterioncorrection. You can also find us on Facebook. We are The Criterion Correction. If you love the show, if you really like it. If you want to help support us.
Share
25:30
Go to
iTunes
, rate and review our show and subscribe.Share
Ed
25:33
And what will we be watching next week, Dr. Z?
Share
Dr. Zed
25:36
So next week we're going to visit another new recent addition to the
collection
, Albert Brooks'
Lost in America
.
Share
Ed
25:43
For The Criterion Correction, I've been Ed.
Share
Dr. Zed
25:46
I've been Dr. Barry Zed.
Share
Ed
25:47
Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.
Share
26:27
The theme song for The Criterion Correction was composed by Chris Wrigley of "Bunhaüs Jingles." You can listen to more of his work at podcastthemesongs. com.
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Dr. Zed