It's a romantic comedy on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
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11/01/07
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Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
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Reviews Counted:35
Fresh:28
Rotten:7
Average Rating:7.4/10
Consensus: Punch-Drunk Love is weird and delightfully funny, even though Sandler essentially plays the same character he has always played in all his movies.
Theatrical Release:Oct 11, 2002 Limited
Box Office: $17,791,031
Synopsis: Paul Thomas Anderson follows 1999's MAGNOLIA with the intensely compelling character study PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE. Barry Egan (Adam Sandler) is a quiet, shy, socially awkward man with an office in an... [More]
Starring: Adam Sandler, Emily Watson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Luis Guzman
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
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Reviews for Punch-Drunk Love
Top CriticIt is quite a vision.
11/02/02
Top CriticThe journey toward redemption feels more like a cinematic experiment than a full-blown movie.
10/26/02
Top CriticDespite its title, Punch-Drunk Love is never heavy-handed. The jabs it employs are short, carefully placed and dead-center.
10/25/02
Top Critic[Anderson] uses a hit-or-miss aesthetic that hits often enough to keep the film entertaining even if none of it makes a lick of sense.
10/25/02
Top CriticIt's wacky. It's unpredictable. It's sure to give pause to Sandler fans and, smaller in number but every bit as dedicated, to Watson admirers too.
10/25/02
Top CriticDirector Paul Thomas Anderson hasn't reinvented Sandler; he's just allowed those of us who tired very quickly of his innocent naif shtick to see how effectively it can be put in the service of something to care about.
10/25/02
Top CriticEverything about Punch-Drunk Love works in a Being John Malkovich sort of way save one. Sandler. When your star doesn't work, it's hard to get us to buy into the rest of a movie as unusual as this.
10/25/02
Top CriticIn Punch-Drunk Love, Adam Sandler doesn't so much discard his old persona as illuminate it, breathing life into the cardboard characters that populated his earlier films.
10/25/02
Top CriticHow odd that a tribute to a wildly theatrical presence should turn out so dull and prosaic.
10/23/02
Top CriticIt is already apparent that Punch-Drunk Love will not be everyone's cup of tea, but nonetheless Mr. Anderson has found a way to fashion a passionate romance out of the materials of postmodern chaos.
10/23/02
Top CriticA weird, arresting little ride.
10/18/02
Top CriticSandler is quite winning, but he doesn't stretch so much as deepen the same character he always plays.
10/18/02
Top CriticThe film is exhilarating to watch because Sandler, liberated from the constraints of formula, reveals unexpected depths as an actor.
10/18/02
Top Critic[Sandler] plays Barry just as he would any of the comic dolts who've made him rich but this time all the panicky sadness is out where we can see it. It's a honey of a performance: controlled, achingly human, and funny in the deepest ways.
10/18/02
Top CriticEven if he turns around and makes Mr. Deeds 2, [Sandler] has shown that his range goes beyond mindless fisticuffs and easy laughs.
10/17/02
Top CriticIn this movie, you'll see Sandler like you've never seen him.
10/17/02
Top CriticManages to be both heartbreaking and happy, while managing to look like nothing you've ever seen before.
10/17/02
Top CriticOne of the strangest and most beguiling romantic comedies ever made.
10/17/02
Top CriticA happy nightmare of silly-smart movie comedy that defies category -- and challenges expectations involving Sandler and his pictures.
10/17/02
Top CriticLatest News for Punch-Drunk Love
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