Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16817 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-07-28
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 95 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
A 97-minute Paul Thomas Anderson picture, Punch-Drunk Love concentrates on a tight little story that might have made a subplot for earlier PTA epics such as Boogie Nights or Magnolia. Adam Sandler has a break-out art film lead not by abandoning his usual persona, but by playing his familiar man-child-out-of-control with far more depth than he has shown in Big Daddy.

Though prone to fits of terrifying rage, oddball entrepreneur Barry Egan (Sandler) is essentially sweet and timid, alternately nagged and cajoled by his seven sisters, and intent on exploiting a loophole in a supermarket promotion to convert piles of cheap puddings into unlimited free flights, though he has never actually been anywhere. Over the course of a day Barry enters into two unusual relationships: with a phone-sex girl (Ashley Clark) who runs a scam with "mattress man" (Philip Seymour Hoffman)--by getting Barry's credit card information and declaring a war of extortion--and with hesitant nice girl Lena (Emily Watson), whom he impulsively follows to Hawaii while trying desperately to seem more like a dedicated romantic than a psycho stalker. Anderson's trademark use of loud background music (including a Shelley Duvall track from Popeye) and obsessively repeated bits of dialogue and business make for a controlled film that still seems on the edge of madness. The result is magical, romantic, comic and creepy. --Kim Newman

Synopsis
Paul Thomas Anderson follows 1999's MAGNOLIA with the intensely compelling character study PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE. Barry Egan (Adam Sandler) is a quiet, shy, socially awkward man with an office in an out-of-the-way warehouse. He is dedicated to his job as a wholesale toilet plunger salesman, he keeps a nice apartment, and he is obsessed with special offers on grocery store products. Barry's latest fixation is on frequent flier miles included with the purchase of Healthy Choice foods. Barry wears a bright blue suit, though he doesn't know why. With seven outspoken sisters, he is constantly being nagged, questioned, and berated. He is challenged to explain the reasons for his actions, and it eventually becomes clear that Barry cannot control his often-violent impulses, a trait which is increasingly problematic. When a beautiful woman, Lena Leonard (Emily Watson), walks into his life with an instinctive attraction to him, a nonjudgmental attitude, and unconditional love, Barry undergoes a powerful transformation.
Anderson's film is a tour-de-force for which he garnered the Best Director award at Cannes 2002. Set primarily in Los Angeles and Utah, he shoots either bleak deserted spaces (apartment building hallways) or lush, exotic paradises (Hawaii). Aiming for a Technicolor look, the blue of Barry's suit in contrast with Lena's solid pinks, reds, and whites, pops off of the screen. Colorful interludes designed by visual artist Jeremy Blake offer hallucinogenic lapses from the action of the film, while the rapid percussive score by Jon Brion keeps the suspense and the emotional exasperation of the film on a constantly high level.

Customer Reviews

The Short Big Punch-Up
After making his 180 minute epic Magnolia, director PT Anderson was asked by the press what his next project would be. He announced he was making a 90 minute comedy starring Adam Sandler, to hearty laughter from the assembled hacks.

And then he made Punch-Drunk Love, a 90 minute comedy, starring Adam Sandler. Well, sort of...

Sandler plays Barry Egan, a man who is seemingly terrified by the world and also suffering from some kind of obsessive compulsive disorder. The film tracks his persecution at the hands of a chatline operator and his 'chance' meeting with a girl which leads to the Love of the title. But why Punch-Drunk too? Possibly because in the first half of the film Barry is subjected to glaring lights, clanging noises, the hen-pecking of his seven sisters and a physical beating...and then he follows Emily Watson's Lena on a business trip and his whole life changes.

Punch-Drunk Love veers between hectic, intense scenes to blissful dreaminess. The cinematography is superb, but likewise swings from steadicam loveliness to handheld paranoia. All the while, the soundtrack reflects this too with jittering, jerky themes melting into sweet hawaiian folk songs.

I loved this film at the cinema and repeat viewings on dvd have backed this up; its mixture of comedy and pathos, romance, phonesex and smashed up patio doors is genuinely appealing. The cast are perfect, and Sandler is a revelation playing something approaching his typical 'manchild', but cast adrift in a world that frustrates and frightens him. Emily Watson brings a tender soulfulness to the character of Lena, and Philip Seymour-Hoffman is as great as ever playing Barry's nemesis the Mattress Man.

Punch-Drunk Love split the critics when released and falls into the 'love it or hate it' category pretty squarely. But if you can accept the uneven tone and want something wholly different from the usual pap that Hollywood serves up in the romantic comedy genre you may well be surprised and delighted. And watch out for the way Barry's ties change colour as the film progresses to match the colour of Lena's dress last time he saw her. Aint that sweet?

The best romantic movie of the last ten years
After the hugely successful Boogie Nights and the inspirational Magnolia, it seems P.T. Anderson has written and directed yet another astonishingly genius movie that goes way off the richter scale of the normal, and all the better for it.Punch-Drunk Love is the Adam Sandler/"romantic comedy" in essence, but hugley distorted and a lot more subtle in humour, making it a truly surreal experience.Adam Sandler stars as Barry Egan, the "Angry but innocent" archetype, but made a lot more realistic and human.So rather than just shouting and stomping like in so many other Sandler films, Barry is quiet,depressed,obsessed with repeating patterns and is prone to outbursts of violence because of a serious implosive rage issue.Barry is the boss of a small company that sells toiletries, is emotionally scarred by his nagging seven sisters, is used to being put down all the time and is very, very lonely. So lonely infact that he calls a phone sex line, just so he can talk to somebody. This leads to a sleazy extortion scam lead by the big talking Mattress Man(played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) and threats Barry's well being. Then enters the unusually beautiful Lena(Emily Watson) who strikes up an unassuming relationship with Barry, just because she saw him in a photograph one of his sisters took and decided to take a chance. Their love blossoms and sends Barry into a state of emotional complexity, fluctuating between lust, uncontrollable rage(at everyone else except Lena anyway) and self doubt,ultimately leading him to change his hellish life and confront the extortionists out to get him.
I, like everybody, was a bit sceptical of Adam Sandler being in P.T. Andersons movie, but after seeing the film I realise that he is one of the best actors of our time. He manages to be funny and very sympathetic as the emotional mess that is our hero, while Hoffman,Watson and Luis Guzman excell as the rest of the cast. What also is outstanding is the directing, beautifully shot images full of extreme colours.The use of sound is amazing too, as the tense drum music builds up when Barry is getting verbally abused,underpressure or growing more wildly angry, but when he is around Lena, its only triumphant violin music and a strange version of Shelly Duvall singing "He Needs Me"(as seen from the live version of Popeye).
Punch-Drunk Love won the best direcitng award at the Cannes and deserves to be a success.Definitely not a movie to miss if you want to see a unique, emotionally powerful love story with a twist.

Dark, funny and romantic
The normally deeply annoying Adam Sandler gives a fascinating and intense performance in this unusual romantic comedy. Barry Egan (Sandler) is something of a misfit, and struggles with his emotions when a luminous but shy woman (played by Emily Watson) comes into his life. This film is dark, funny - and genuinely romantic.