Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
Average Rating: 7.4/10
Reviews Counted: 182
Fresh: 144 | 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: 40
Fresh: 32 | Rotten: 8
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
User Ratings: 135,760
Movie Info
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
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Cast
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Adam Sandler
Barry Egan -
Emily Watson
Lena Leonard -
Philip Seymour Hoffm...
Dean Trumbell -
Luis Guzman
Lance -
Mary Lynn Rajskub
Elizabeth -
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Punch-Drunk Love Trailer & Photos
All Critics (191) | Top Critics (41) | Fresh (144) | Rotten (38) | DVD (44)
It's a romantic comedy on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Top CriticThe film looks good and has its funny moments, but too often one senses Anderson straining to impress...
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.
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.
Watson is simply radiant with her goofy and beautiful smile, while Sandler's psychotic nice-guy schtick makes for some really great moments.
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.
Unlike any romantic comedy this year, with a vision so wondrously off-kilter that you'll be swept off your feet by it, even if you don't fall in love at first sight.
No cumple con todas las expectativas, pero sigue siendo uno de los directores más originales y talentosos que el cine norteamericano tiene para ofrecer.
Gimmicks in search for a heart and a soul.
In his effort to 'redefine' the romantic comedy, Anderson has made a film that is neither romantic nor funny.
Punch Drunk Love feels like a movie Billy Wilder would make if he were he hitting his stride today and able to include liberal, but appropriate, profanity.
Audience Reviews for Punch-Drunk Love
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Movies Like Punch-Drunk Love
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- Barry Egan: I have no buisness here, I came for you.
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- Barry Egan: I have a love in my life, It makes me stronger than anything you can imagine.
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Foreign Titles
- Punch drunk love (FR)
- Embriagado de amor (ES)
The plot follows a shy sad sack prone to occasionally violent outbursts who begins dating a woman as equally shy and awkward as him. He's got seven sisters who hate and mock him, and he's got four goons after him looking for money after he gets extorted following a phone call he made to a phone sex line.
The film is weird, as it is a surreal romantic dramedy, but like Brazil, despite that there are dark undertones (more subtle here than in Brazil) there is a quirky, uplifting feeling and charm as well...which I really enjoyed. Whimsical is the perfect way to describe this film. The acting is superb-leave it at that. No, I'm not kidding. This is Sandler's best.
This film above all, is just wonderful to look at, and another reason for why it's so charming and great. It is a bit rough around the edges, and kinda bizarre, but it's really hard not to like, which is sad since it's still pretty underrated, but I really hope that changes.