Average Rating: 7.4/10
Reviews Counted: 180
Fresh: 142 | Rotten: 38
Odd, touching, and unique, Punch-Drunk Love is also delightfully funny, utilizing Adam Sandler's comic persona to explore the life of a lonely guy who finds love.
Average Rating: 7.4/10
Critic Reviews: 36
Fresh: 29 | Rotten: 7
Odd, touching, and unique, Punch-Drunk Love is also delightfully funny, utilizing Adam Sandler's comic persona to explore the life of a lonely guy who finds love.
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Average Rating: 3.2/5
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Adam Sandler and Emily Watson star in Punch-Drunk Love, an odd romantic comedy from gifted young director Paul Thomas Anderson. Sandler plays Barry Egan, a shy sad-sack with a great deal of repressed anger that occasionally bursts forth in sudden violent outrages, who falls in love with Lena Leonard (Emily Watson), a co-worker of one of Barry's seven sisters. After calling a phone-sex line, Barry is extorted by bad-guy Dean Trumbell (Anderson regular Philip Seymour Hoffman), who eventually sends
Oct 11, 2002 Wide
Jun 24, 2003
$17.8M
Columbia Pictures
All Critics (187) | Top Critics (36) | Fresh (146) | Rotten (40) | DVD (44)
It's a romantic comedy on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
It is quite a vision.
The journey toward redemption feels more like a cinematic experiment than a full-blown movie.
Despite its title, Punch-Drunk Love is never heavy-handed. The jabs it employs are short, carefully placed and dead-center.
In the end, Punch-Drunk Love is one of those films that I wanted to like much more than I actually did. Sometimes, that's enough.
Easily one of the best and most exciting movies of the year.
Odd romantic journey for adults and older teens.
While certainly sweet, Love is more compelling as a veiled threat, with Anderson jerking the audience around, wielding abrasive characters and hostile situations in a manner I've come to adore.
Shots, such as when Sandler and Watson kiss in silhouette, are truly memorable -- but Punch-Drunk Love is never more than this: a series of chocolate-box moments, PT-style.
...Punch-Drunk Love is (and always will be) the crowning achievement within Anderson's filmography.
It's clear by now that whatever characterization skill Anderson showed in his lean, mean debut, 1997's Hard Eight, was a fluke.
A trifle at 89 minutes with a genuine, heartfelt performance by Mr. Sandler, and not much else.
The film looks good and has its funny moments, but too often one senses Anderson straining to impress...
Paul Thomas Anderson used Sandler for a very specific purpose -to convey a sense of tough-luck awkwardness and smile-masking-frown frustration, and it worked perfectly.
Anderson is simply punch-drunk on the possibilities of cinema, and sophisticated film lovers will be more than willing to go wherever he goes -- yes, even to an Adam Sandler movie.
What really makes this movie so special, apart from the revelation that Adam Sandler can act, is the direction.
Punch-drunk Love reminds me of why I go to movies in the first place. To be challenged, surprised, transported, inspired, and exhilarated.
The elements of tragedy aren't life and death issues in this movie, and Anderson's film wisely contains itself to the microcosm of this one man's beleaguered existence.
[I]t's no secret that... certain films [are] critic's darlings... leav[ing] moviegoers vowing never to trust a critic again. This season [it's] Punch-Drunk Love.
I'm late to the game in seeing this one from Paul Thomas Anderson. I love his work, and I'm always eager to seek out other films that he's done. He hasn't done too many, as of this writing, but I always look forward to more. Punch-Drunk Love is probably the most curious film he's ever made. It stars Adam Sandler, who I
December 24, 2007
Super Reviewer
Paul Thomas Anderson's 'Punch Drunk Love' is not an easy film to watch. It is probably PTA's most artistically driven film. Sandler provides a surprisingly good performance with his extreme bouts of rage and honest emotion. Hoffman adds a nice comedic touch to the film as well. Fans of PTA's other work will be
December 6, 2011Super Reviewer
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Pictures: Wes Anderson films
Video: Your friendly four minute preview
Trailer: The legend continues!