6 USED HARMONIUMS OUT OF 7
In Punch-Drunk Love, the aforementioned actor ends up looking like a nice boy, who owns an odd business, but if you hurt his girl he will beat you unconscious with a crowbar. In all seriousness, Paul Thomas Anderson made another great movie. Not many like, or understand for that matter, Magnolia, one of P.T. Anderson’s previous films, and some may say the same for Punch-Drunk Love. And I’d answer with: You’re dumb.
For the whole of Punch-Drunk Love, it would appear to the intelligent viewer that the director made this movie to simply experiment with sounds and specifically his soundtrack in a movie. The sounds used and filming style has things start slow melodic and then turn suddenly fast and electronic or anxiety-ridden. He gets you to feel exactly what the main character is feeling. In stating this I think he also took chances with some shots in the movie. For example Egan, Sandler’s character, sitting in his “office” right at the beginning. I thought it was a beautiful shot! These are delicately placed throughout the movie, and they give me erections.
I think Adam Sandler plays one of the most human characters in cinema. Barry Egan is real. He’s a man with problems and issues. Some of them completely over-thought by him, some over-thought of by his meddling seven sisters, some completely normal or not even thought of.
One of my last comments on this great movie would be, and I’m sure all of us at Movie Club will say something about it, but Pillip Seymour Hoffman was a riot. His was my favorite character although a small one.
Ultimately, I thought everything in the movie was subtle, but clear. They wouldn’t hold your hand through it telling you this story is about THIS, but you had an understanding of what the THIS was. I think that style allows you to feel that you’re not being patronized like most romantic movies.
-NOOCH
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