Part of Staff Picks and programmed by Anthony, who says: “Until society is ready to demand the complete Adam Sandler retrospective that we DESERVE, this entry will suffice. Plus I think I can confidently say that you will, for the rest of your life, have less than like 10 chances to see PTA’s tender-hearted masterpiece on 35mm film — don’t blow this one! And I mean c’mon, it’s only 95 minutes.”
Chaos lurks in every corner of this giddily off-kilter foray into romantic comedy by Paul Thomas Anderson. Struggling to cope with his erratic temper, novelty-toilet-plunger salesman Barry Egan (Adam Sandler, demonstrating remarkable versatility in his first dramatic role) spends his days collecting frequent-flyer-mile coupons and dodging the insults of his seven sisters. The promise of a new life emerges when Barry inadvertently attracts the affection of a mysterious woman named Lena (Emily Watson) — but their budding relationship is threatened when he falls prey to the swindling operator of a phone sex line and her deranged boss (played with maniacal brio by Philip Seymour Hoffman). Fueled by the careening momentum of a baroque-futurist score by Jon Brion, the Cannes-award-winning PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE channels the spirit of classic Hollywood and the whimsy of Jacques Tati into an idiosyncratic ode to the delirium of new romance. (Synopsis courtesy of the Criterion Collection)
