Punch-Drunk Love (Two-Disc Special Edition)
by Paul Thomas Anderson
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Adam Sandler, Don McManus, Emily Watson, Jason Andrews, Philip Seymour HoffmanDirector: Paul Thomas Anderson
Brand: Sony
Cinematographer: Robert Elswit
Producer: Paul Thomas Anderson
Writer: Paul Thomas Anderson
Editor: Leslie Jones
Producer: Daniel Lupi
Producer: Daniel P. Collins
Producer: JoAnne Sellar
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 2.35:1
Running Time: 95 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-06-24
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Movie Reviews of Punch-Drunk Love (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Movie Review: Autistic America
Summary: 5 Stars
Barry Egan (Adam Sandler) is autistic. P.T.Anderson invites us to share Barry's experience of the world. The film tells a story, a love story, but it's Barry's being that is the real subject.
Anderson uses imaginative cinematic techniques to make Barry's world vivid. Sound and colour are hyperbolic and impressionistic. The sensory world of the film is suggestive of synaesthesia (the conflation of the individual senses: i.e. "seeing" sounds, and "hearing" colours) which is associated with autism, and in any case makes for an involving spectacle; the colourful patterns that interrupt the narrative are particularly evocative, and are the work of P.T.Anderson's friend and art director. The soundtrack threatens to overwhelm dialogue, and is often strikingly out of character (and out of rhythm) with the action on the screen - it is as if we are listening to Barry's own "soundtrack", that is to say that the sound evokes the mood that pervades Barry's psyche, and this mood is something he (and we) must penetrate in order discern the external world (it's a beautiful touch when the soundtrack goes silent just as Barry begins to make a real connection with his love, Lena).
Anderson also shows how experiences are prised out of the smooth flow of time - a truck is a long way down the road, then, instantly, it is roaring past; a conversation is at one level, then, abruptly, is at another level entirely (e.g. Barry's phone call from Hawaii to his sister in L.A.). The movie again asks us to experience the world from an altered perspective, one where the continuity between events and between mental states is awkward, jagged, or non-existent.
Barry is perplexed by his own actions and reactions. His mantra of "I don't know" in answer to questions regarding his dress and behaviour is revealing - he literally does not know why he does certain things. His own emotions baffle him; they have an independent existence, only tenuously connected to one another, and only partly experienced as belonging to himself - they seem to belong not to a person, but to a situation (the boundaries are blurred between Barry's internal experience and external reality), or they belong to two separate "people" (thus Barry erupts into rage, then snaps back into apologetic introversion - it is as if he has two modes of being, with little capacity to stand outside both and acknowledge each as part of his complex self (a form of dissociation, in technical terms, and again a feature of some forms of autism)). This discontinuity of the emotions relates again to the discontinuous experience of time mentioned earlier.
Barry has trouble comprehending the emotional cues of those around him. This impedes his ability to infer the motivations of others. His own face and body language do not convey emotions readily - he is almost "scared" to express, from fear of not knowing what will emerge. At times Adam Sandler's face is at war with itself, little tics and ripples conveying the sense that beneath the mask conflicting impluses are in dispute with each other. Understandably, he has trouble making connections with others, and so he fears other people, especially strangers, and avoid situations where he is likely to meet new people - yet he still desires to love and to be loved. The mysterious harmonium is a poignant symbol of Barry's difficulty in playing a melody upon his own heart.
Lena (Emily Watson) is presented, in an appropriately 'unrealistic' way, as his love. Why she is attracted to him is only hinted at - she mentions seeing him in a family photograph with his seven sisters and finding the family scene appealing, and appreciating the fact that she is "needed" by him, and that he seeks her out (that is, pursues her): all this doesn't add up to a convincing set of reasons for her to engage with him, but it does suggest her need to "save" or "be saved" by someone (or some family).
Dean "The Mattress Man" (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is at once Barry's enemy and his equal. He understands, and shares, Barry's emotions. He even makes his living in a related way, as a small businessman, albeit with different ethics. Their climactic interaction is a bizarre, brilliant mirroring of minds. Dean's henchmen are four silent brothers - something of a parallel to Barry's seven garrulous sisters.
The plague of sisters in Barry's life are literal warring voices inside his head. One sister's criticisms blend with another's solicitations, all being similarly intrusive. His drastic measure to silence the chorus of chiding and complaint brings a family gathering to a shattering pause - but the circus resumes, and Barry's plea for psychiatric help (made to his brother in law, the dentist) speaks of a collective family pathology, where reality is a threat, denial a reflex defence, and the boundaries porous between one family member and next - the sisters' verbal effluent floods through Barry, reducing him to a frustrated passivity.
More familiar markers of autism are deployed in the depiction of Barry's obsessionality, and his facility with numbers.
P.T.Anderson is not about to tell anyone any of this. Why should he? His film is a work of art, not a didactic tract. Yet even the extras on the DVD only hint at the film's subject - rather than an explanatory commentary, or actors' revelations, there are clips of the digital art and the accompanying musical themes. While I have no evidence for this next speculation, I wonder if the director (and possibly the lead actor) have some direct experience with autism - their understanding feels that deep.
In the end the film builds a link between the autistic and those not so afflicted - Barry finds his own emotions, and those of others, opaque; his access is limited; the love of another is fragile and mysterious; and to some degree isn't that the situation we all inhabit?
I think this film is absolutely brilliant.
Summary of Punch-Drunk Love (Two-Disc Special Edition)
The Superbit titles utilize a special high bit rate digital encoding process which optimizes video quality while offering a choice of both DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. These titles have been produced by a team of Sony Pictures Digital Studios video, sound and mastering engineers and comes housed in a special package complete with a 4 page booklet that contains technical information on the Superbit process. By reallocating space on the disc normally used for value-added content, Superbit DVDs can be encoded at double their normal bit rate while maintaining full compatibility with the DVD video format.Adam Sandler takes a shot at critical respectability with Punch-Drunk Love, a movie by director Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia). Sandler plays Barry Egan, a lonely small businessman who calls a phone sex line one night, only to find himself the victim of an extortion scheme the next day--the very same day on which he goes out on a date with the woman who may be the love of his life (the utterly delightful Emily Watson). Barry is a lot like Sandler's popular comic characters--socially maladept, prone to violence, always on the brink of embarrassment--but here Sandler plays it real; the result is both off-putting and sympathetic. Anderson's writing skills, unfortunately, are not as strong as his visual sense. Punch-Drunk Love has many strengths (including great supporting actors Philip Seymour Hoffman and Luis Guzmán), but ultimately fizzles out. --Bret Fetzer
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