Punch-Drunk Love

Depending on your disposition towards quirky American comedies, this is either a truly original gem or a complete folly. Fans of director Paul Thomas Anderson's previous films Magnolia and Boogie Nights will be stunned — and as for fans of Adam Sandler, well, they won't know what's hit them. Sandler plays Barry Egan, the head of a bathroom novelties company who collects air-mile coupons in his spare time, is prone to uncontrollable rages and is mercilessly bullied by his seven sisters. In the first five minutes of the movie a car flips over outside his office, an old harmonium is abandoned and Emily Watson appears from nowhere and asks him to look after her car. Then things start to get really strange. Much has been made of low-brow favourite Sandler teaming up with art house darling Anderson, but the curious combination works. Sandler's antisocial persona is given a surprising, touching twist, that makes the volatile Egan entirely plausible, if still off-kilter, and he handles the movie's moments of slapstick and pathos with equal ease. It might take two viewings to make sense of this surreal, candid romance, and even then that might not help — but it doesn't matter. This is a film you just experience — it's illogical and beautiful, just like falling in love.

"...It proves that Sandler has talent....PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE is never heavy-handed. The jabs it employs are short, carefully placed and dead-center..."