Punch Drunk Love

Punch-Drunk Love crawled so Uncut Gems could walk! Paul Thomas Anderson’s foray into a romantic (and still dark!) comedy is about as chaotic and off-kilter as one might expect. Barry Egan (Adam Sandler, in his first dramatic starring role) is a small business owner with seven sisters whose abuse has kept him alone and unable to fall in love. When a harmonium and a mysterious woman enters his life (Emily Watson), his romantic journey begins, but not without an extortion side quest for the ages—enter Philip Seymour Hoffman in yet another small, but wildly impactful, role. Jon Brion (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Magnolia) helps fuel the narrative with a baroque, futurist score that helps Punch-Drunk Love channel “the spirit of classic Hollywood musicals and the whimsy of Jacques Tati into an idiosyncratic ode to the delirium of new romance” (Criterion Collection). [95 min; drama, comedy, romance; English]