How odd that a tribute to a wildly theatrical presence should turn out so dull and prosaic.
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10/23/02
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Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
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Reviews Counted:180
Fresh:142
Rotten:38
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 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 CriticPunch-Drunk Love may not be a great movie — but it is the kind of movie some of us will want to watch again and again, just to bathe in that calming blue glow, to look for signs and wonders in the corners of the frame.
10/23/02
Why can't other filmmakers challenge, surprise, and excite us like this?
10/23/02
It's difficult to imagine why anyone should, could or would care about any of the characters in this film.
10/23/02
Anderson presents some of the sweetest, and most heartbreaking, moments in any movie this year.
10/22/02
Could this be the year that Adam Sandler gets an Oscar nomination?
10/22/02
The unexplored story opportunities of “Punch-Drunk Love” may have worked against the maker’s minimalist intent but it is an interesting exercise by talented writer/director Anderson.
10/22/02
Love and romance with a more resounding note than any usual artificially contrived Hollywood smooch-fest.
10/21/02
Another overrated film by writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson, [it is] a romantic comedy without any real romance and with only a few laughs.
10/21/02
It has a profusion of confusion, a pseudo-autistic hero, and a stream of nonsequitirs. It's also not entirely bad.
10/21/02
As a singular character study, it's perfect. It's also the year's sweetest movie.
10/20/02
Sandler is excellent in the part, making Barry a wild-card cipher that sucks you in and makes you ache to see him win something -- anything -- from life.
10/20/02
Sandler was really good, and I'd be hard pressed to name another actor who'd have his qualities and could have done a better job.
10/18/02
A weird, arresting little ride.
10/18/02
A weirdly sweet little love story set in waltz time and filmed as a study in contrast: light and dark, order and chaos, delicate music and ear-bending noise.
10/18/02
Sandler 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
If you see one Adam Sandler movie in your life, Punch-Drunk Love would be the one to see. Which is not to say the movie is without problems or off-putting elements, or even that I'm entirely sure what it's about.
10/18/02
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