Mr. Sandler
The schlub gets a P.T. Anderson makeover in

Punch-Drunk Love.

By Cheryl Eddy

PLAYING A GUY whose explosive temper begets unusual strength is nothing new for Adam Sandler, who's used that trick a time or three or four before (see Happy Gilmore, The Waterboy, Mr. Deeds, and draw your own conclusions from his upcoming, auspiciously titled Anger Management). It seems like it wouldn't be a stretch for Sandler to play Punch-Drunk Love's Barry Egan, an average schlub given to fits of comical fury – unless, of course, you take into account that Punch-Drunk Love isn't the latest output of the Sandler laff factory; it's actually the new film from P.T. Anderson, mastermind behind the great Boogie Nights and its overblown follow-up, Magnolia (Tom Cruise's "respect the cock" speech notwithstanding). Pre-release, it's unclear whose fans will be more accepting of this unexpected collaboration, which is saddled with the burden of proving that Sandler can actually act and that Anderson can make a movie that focuses on one main character and has a run time of less than three hours.

Punch-Drunk Love is definitely a weird piece of work, displaying vaguely Coen brothers-like tendencies and a stop-go momentum that somehow fits its structure – essentially, it's just a series of very, very carefully plotted self-contained scenes in a world with deliberately stylized art and sound direction. Amid all the structure is chaos, abetted by unpredictable elements like Barry's tantrums, a consistent motif of things (cars, forklifts, chairs, windows) smashing and crashing, and a supporting cast composed almost entirely of nonactors. And, as the title suggests, Punch-Drunk Love is a full-blown romance – a theme Sandler and Anderson are both comfortable with (admit it: Mr. Deeds and Boogie Nights both had ya convinced that love really does conquer all).

Of course, Barry's got to overcome a huge stumbling block – himself – before he's able to grab ahold of true happiness and all the hearts, flowers, rainbows, and unicorns brought on by love, sweet love. He's the boss of his own small company (it involves the wholesale supplying of "fungers," toilet plungers festooned with dice, little brides and grooms, and the like). He's also pretty sharp, having sussed out a way to turn a Healthy Choice-American Airlines product promotion into a scheme that'll net him more than a million frequent flier miles. But he's unhappy, thanks to a well-meaning but actually pretty vile pack of seven sisters, all of whom cheerfully slather Barry in confidence-crushing verbal abuse. And he's lonely, which leads him to call a phone-sex line – a disastrous move, he soon realizes, when the throaty-voiced operator and her associates begin extorting him for extra cash.

Watching Sandler's star vehicles, you get the impression that he steps in front of the camera and just lets loose, employing his array of funny voices and aw-shucks, dunderheaded charm to achieve the expected effect (let's say, a $45 million opening weekend). Anderson wrote the part of Barry especially for Sandler, and a certain directorial guidance affects his performance. Sandler plays Barry as nervous and earnest; he also spends almost the entire film dressed in an electric-blue suit, which is pointed out repeatedly as an unusual wardrobe choice for Barry (not to mention for the eternally casual Sandler). Certain scenes – a too-long sequence in which a bellowing Barry is pursued by a group of teenage thugs, for example – recall vintage Sandler, but new emotional territory is frequently mined, particularly as Barry gets to know the sweetly persistent Lena (Emily Watson).

All we ever know about Lena is that she works with Barry's sister and travels a lot. Oh, and that she saw a picture of Barry – and was in love at once. The very idea that someone so normal would fall for the unstable, Healthy Choice pudding-obsessed Barry is unbelievable even to him. Before long, though, he's tap-dancing in the aisles of a 99 cent store and trailing Lena on a business trip to Hawaii, an impossibly romantic location that elevates the affection connection to truly, madly, deeply status (cynics, be warned). By the end, Barry's love for Lena makes him strong enough to resist making mincemeat out of the sleazy phone-sex boss (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who's been directing a terror campaign against him.

So by and large, yeah, Sandler pulls it off, though it's unclear whether Anderson zeroed in on him because he wanted to provide the comedian with a breakout role, or because convincing audiences to see Sandler as more than a goofy megaplex star is a formidable challenge, or just because. The film is a low-key enough departure that Anderson devotees expecting his usual epic sprawl may be left intrigued, if secretly unfulfilled. For Sandler, whose slate of movies in the near future doesn't indicate any other moves in the "artsy" direction, the oddly affectionate Punch-Drunk Love may well end up being just a blip in the norm. Too bad, because he's interesting enough here that a career beyond caca jokes – which are not without their merits, mind you – is certainly within reach.

'Punch-Drunk Love' opens Fri/18 at Bay Area theaters. See Movie Clock, in Film Listings, for show times.