“I have so much strength inside of me. You have no idea. I have a love in my life. It makes me stronger than anything you can imagine.”
– Barry Egan
I suppose we should consider this Paul Thomas Anderson’s brief foray into “Romantic Comedy” (unless you count Phantom Thread). It’s not like any other romantic comedy I’ve seen. It’s funny, but not that funny. It’s romantic, but not that romantic. It’s probably more violent than it is romantic. Which is not to say there’s not passion and love. Barry Egan overflows with passion and love, along with a whole lot of anger. The romantic connection between the two lovebirds is too raw and awkward to be “romantic” in the classic sense. And I believe that’s on purpose. Anderson is more interested in the feelings that surround love, rather than just pure love itself. Feelings like fear, embarrassment, and anxiety. But also things like hope, excitement, and joy.
This movie is almost like a spiritual successor to one of the main plotlines in Magnolia: The awkward romantic relationship between Officer Jim Kurring and Claudia Gator. The dynamic is much different, and the characters are different. But it’s as if that awkward tension between those two characters is what inspired him to create Barry and Lena. Maybe that’s why he wanted to work with an actor like Adam Sandler (who used this film to make the leap to more dramatic work). Sandler’s sensibilities as a comedic actor shine in this kind of role. A neurotic, off-balanced individual that has trouble bottling up all his stray emotions. He’s angry, so he destroys a bathroom. But he seems kind, so we forgive him for it. That’s where the comedy lies. In the space between blind rage and immense shame.
You can pick up a hint of Coen Brothers in this film. Just a tad. A shade of Big Lebowski in the Hoffman storyline (a case of mistaken identity, a group of dimwitted wannabe criminals, an overly confident asshole who thinks he’s a badass trying to run the show). But otherwise, Anderson moves away from the influences that were so prevalent in his previous three films. It’s strange, because he seemed to have found an identity in Magnolia. And while Punch Drunk does feel like a distilled version of that identity, it feels more like a mutation of that style rather than an evolution. And it doesn’t feel anything like his next project, There Will Be Blood. So in a way, Punch Drunk Love was more about branching out from the path that he’d found himself on. And it wasn’t so much important wherethat divergent path would lead him. Just that it would break the expectation of what a “Paul Thomas Anderson Movie” could be. I think what he ultimately sought was total creative freedom. He wanted to be able to do anything that he wanted to do.
As I’ve explored in my previous reviews of Anderson’s work, music is a major element in all his films. It’s almost like a character. For the music in this movie… I can picture someone in this big room, with all kinds of instruments and pieces of percussion. But not just instruments, pieces of trash too, like trash can lids and broken glass bottles and tin and scrap, and this guy – the musician – is watching the movie on a big screen and just banging things around, the instruments and the trash, to make this frantic, organic soundtrack that perfectly and chaotically captures what I imagine Barry’s heartbeat must feel like in a tough situation. It can be overwhelming. It can dominate a scene to the point that we don’t know what people are saying or doing. But we get that feeling of everything coming apart at the seams, which is what Barry feels all the time. So that’s pretty brilliant, right? A perfect example is the scene where he meets Lena with his sister at the warehouse, and there’s an accident with the loader. The world is falling apart around him, but all he can do is stand there and focus on the nervous girl with the pretty smile.
And then we come to the little piano. The harmonium that some van just leaves by the side of the road. They even incorporate the sound of Sandler pressing the keys into the soundtrack itself. It’s like when Barry presses a key, it awakens the music. Is this PT’s conscious acknowledgement of music being a major contributor to the overall success of his movies? Maybe that’s looking too far into it, but with a filmmaker as complex and thoughtful as Anderson, you have to consider the possibility that every little thing you see and hear is meaningful in some way.
But music and sound isn’t everything. Anderson features the video art of Jeremy Blake throughout the film. There are these semi-abstract color palettes splashed across the movie as we transition from place to place or feeling to feeling. Blues and reds and purples and whites. Is that some kind of synesthesia? Music as color? Music as mood? It’s a really lovely touch, that really helps put you in a different headspace as you watch the movie. The addition of the morphing colors, accompanied by warbled bending string music forces you to view it as kind of magical and maybe even otherworldly. Or other-dimensionly perhaps. Like this is another version of our world, with almost the exact same laws of physics, but maybe with a bit more luck or fate or happenstance sprinkled throughout. It’s similar to Magnolia in that way. You could almost see him constructing this sort of cinematic universe of his own, much like a fantasy or comic book universe. Quentin Tarantino has played with this idea of having an interconnected body of work. But PT seems to work more in duos: Hard Eight and Boogie Nights, Magnolia and Punch Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood and The Master.
Overall, I would consider Punch Drunk Love to be a “lesser” PTA work. Which is not to diminish it at all. It’s a good movie. Quirky, fun, unexpected. It’s fun to watch Adam Sandler squirm, and Paul Thomas by extension. I don’t know that I’d want to see another movie like this from him. I think he’s just past this kind of story and style and general concept. But I do think it played an important role in his journey. A journey that would take an unexpectedly…bloody…turn.