Punch-Drunk Love

A couple months ago I pulled up Punch-Drunk Love and stopped after about 20 seconds. Those 20 seconds recalled memories of vague discomfort, eccentricities, a tone I'm not usually seeking when I'm just in the mood to watch a movie. I think I watched the exceedingly cinematic Macbeth instead. Tonight didn't seem any different -- if anything less fit for a movie given my exhaustion -- and beyond expectation I thoroughly enjoyed Punch-Drunk Love. It's been many years. Maybe early college, or earlier. I probably saw it a couple or few times back then. I remember really liking it, placing it in my high class of movies that connect with me, beside other Paul Thomas Anderson features with that keen emotive intelligence. I think I explained this in a post in the past year. Something about empathy and intelligence converging in a way suitable to my taste. Something about Paul Thomas Anderson being my soul mate. Or maybe being myself in a parallel universe. I just can't go wrong with him. His tone just seems right for me -- especially everything after Boogie Nights. Boogie Nights is a little more questionable, though I like it. Anyway, I remember liking Punch-Drunk Love, and connecting with it, and feeling dreamy. I didn't expect those feelings would revive. But I truly enjoyed it tonight. Much of it was dreamy in the sense of chaotic nonlinear dreams that are neither good nor bad, just amusing to recall. That would define Punch-Drunk Love's place in cinema, I guess. But there's this massive heart I somehow connect with, despite all the superficial discomfort, which makes it a wonderful sort of dream. It's unexpected, since I don't think I feel particular affection for Barry. It's hard for me to feel affection for Adam Sandler. He's just so confusing. Even the way he looks and speaks is weird and uncomfortable, and his movies are mind-blowingly successful. I don't get the Adam Sandler phenomenon at all. Nor do I get how he pulled this movie off, nor why he got the role. Somehow it seems to work. It may even be a great performance -- it's hard for me to tell. Given the rest of his repertoire, he seems to kind of crush this one. Yet he's still Adam Sandler. I wonder whether I'd prefer this movie with a better-looking actor, or at least a more sympathetic-looking one. For one, it would make me less uncomfortable looking at him, and for two, it would make the romance more believable. As much as I've seen Emily Watson before and never swooned, the foil with Barry (and really with the entire movie) is extremely powerful in rosying her up. She's a downright bombshell in the world of this movie! And worth loving -- she's very warm and kind and accepting toward a character with the warmth of a razor's edge. It's a little uncomfortable to watch -- why is she being an angel to this guy? Maybe I'm ill with envy -- not necessarily of him for her, but of him for the circumstance and the unequivocal goodness of the relationship. How does he deserve such an angelic presence in such a menial world as this movie? What was PTA's premise for this movie? Put this really uncomfortable guy in this really uncomfortable world and give him an angel? It's hard to imagine writing this movie. But it seems to work. I really liked it. I found the relationship beautiful and admirable. Everything was thrilling and fun -- every little detail. There are so many details that don't seem to contribute to the larger purpose, but if the purpose is tone, then they sure do, and the tone is classic and unique. It all kept me amused, long enough to eventually knock me down. Maybe I have to be in the mood to put up with idiosyncratic Sandler. Or at least not not in the mood. Yet I really liked this movie.

As much as I appreciate the subtlety and austerity of his more recent, more serious movies (There Will Be Blood, Phantom Thread), his filmography's greatness wouldn't be so comprehensive without his earlier frenetic passion projects, wherein he threw every idea at the wall in energetic succession (Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love). I don't know how a person writes movies like these, but clearly he was a fountain of ideas. In 95 minutes Punch-Drunk Love is at least three movies: pudding scheme, identity theft, guy with complex social and emotional problems finds love, maybe the harmonium bit... but the fountain of ideas doesn't end there. It really flows through every minute of the movie, in every shot, musical flair, conversation... Reading the Wikipedia plot summary is unique enough, but even ignoring the plot, every moment of the movie has something unique to offer. I just can't help but call the filmmaker brilliant -- such a prolific and passionate spring of ideas. Even if the movies don't agree with one's taste, the inspiration is inspiring.