Punch-Drunk Love

Punch-Drunk Love is a 2002 American romantic black comedy film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, and starring Adam Sandler, Emily Watson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Luis Guzmán and Mary Lynn Rajskub. Sandler plays an entrepreneur with severe social anxiety who is set up on a date with his sister's co-worker. The two immediately fall in love, but he is forced to defend his new love interest and himself from extortionists.

The film was produced by Revolution Studios and New Line Cinema, and distributed by Columbia Pictures. It features the video art of Jeremy Blake in the form of visual interludes. The film received positive reviews from critics, with Sandler's performance receiving widespread acclaim, but failed to recoup the production budget on box office.

Plot
Barry Egan is a single man who owns a company that markets themed toilet plungers and other novelty items. He has seven overbearing sisters who ridicule and emotionally abuse him regularly and leads a lonely life punctuated by fits of rage and social anxiety. In the span of one morning, he witnesses an inexplicable car accident, picks up an abandoned pump organ from the street, and encounters Lena Leonard, a coworker of one of his sisters, Elizabeth. Lena had orchestrated this meeting after seeing him in a family picture belonging to Elizabeth.

Barry goes to his sister's birthday party, where the rest of his sisters ridicule him. They bring up the times when they would call him "gay boy" until he got mad. They bring up an incident from when he was younger when he threw a hammer through their sliding glass window. He reacts angrily, shattering his sister's windows. He talks to his brother-in-law where he asks if he can give him the phone number to a therapist.

Coping with his loneliness, Barry calls a phone-sex line, but the operator attempts to extort money and sends her four henchmen, who are brothers, to collect. This complicates his budding relationship with Lena, as well as his plan to exploit a loophole in a Healthy Choice promotion and amass a million frequent flyer miles by buying large quantities of pudding.

After Lena leaves for Hawaii on a business trip, Barry decides to follow her. He arrives and calls Elizabeth to find out where Lena is staying. When his sister starts abusing him again, Barry snaps and demands she give him the information, which she does. Lena is overjoyed to see Barry. They spend time together and make love. At first, Barry explains that he is in Hawaii on a business trip by coincidence, but he soon admits that he came only for her. When Barry's sister calls Lena in Hawaii, Lena tells her that she hasn't had any contact with Barry, loyally preserving his and their privacy. The romance develops further, and Barry finally feels some relief from the emotional isolation he has endured.

After they return home, the four brothers ram their car into Barry's, leaving Lena mildly injured. With his new-found freedom from loneliness in jeopardy, a surprisingly aggressive and poised Barry adeptly fights off all four of the goons in a matter of seconds, using a tire iron as a weapon. Wanting to make sure Lena is never hurt again, Barry leaves Lena at the hospital and tries to end the harassment by calling the phone-sex line back and speaking to the "supervisor", who turns out to be Dean Trumbell, who is also the owner of a mattress store. Barry travels to the mattress store in Provo, Utah, to confront Dean face to face. Dean, at first trying to intimidate Barry, finds Barry more intimidating after Barry tells him that he is in love and it makes him stronger than anyone else. An end to the harassment is implied once Dean learns that Barry has come all the way from LA to confront him instead of going to the police, though Dean tries to save face by getting in the last word.

Barry returns to Lena's apartment, and tells her everything, about the phone-sex episode, and Dean's goons, and begs her for forgiveness, pledging his loyalty and to use his frequent-flier miles to accompany her on all future business trips in just six to eight weeks after his pudding miles are processed. She was upset he left the hospital but eventually agrees, and they embrace happily. Some time later, Lena approaches Barry in his office while he plays the harmonium. She puts her arms around him and says, "So, here we go."

Cast

 * Adam Sandler as Barry Egan
 * Emily Watson as Lena Leonard
 * Philip Seymour Hoffman as Dean Trumbell
 * Mary Lynn Rajskub as Elizabeth Egan
 * Luis Guzmán as Lance
 * Robert Smigel as Walter the dentist

Production
After working on his previous film Magnolia, Anderson stated that he would like to work with Sandler in the future and that he was determined to make his next film ninety minutes long.

Box office
The film received a limited domestic release with $17,791,032 in box office receipts on October 11, 2002. An international box office of about $6,800,000 resulted in a worldwide box office of $24,591,032.

Critical reception
The film received generally positive reviews from critics and has a rating of 80% "Certified Fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes based on 191 reviews with an average rating of 7.4/10. The consensus states "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." The film also has a score of 78 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 37 reviews. The movie came in at #33 in The A.V. Club's "Top 50 films of the '00s".

Roger Ebert, who gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, praised Sandler's performance in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, saying, "Sandler, liberated from the constraints of formula, reveals unexpected depths as an actor. Watching this film, you can imagine him in Dennis Hopper roles. He has darkness, obsession and power. He can't go on making those moronic comedies forever, can he?" Sandler went on to win Best Actor at the Gijón International Film Festival for his performance and was also nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. Anderson won the award for Best Director at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and the film was nominated for the Palme d'Or. The film was nominated for the Grand Prix of the Belgian Syndicate of Cinema Critics.

Filmmakers Lee Unkrich, Judd Apatow, Barry Jenkins and Taika Waititi, and actors Bill Nighy, Owen Wilson and Timothée Chalamet have cited it as one of their favorite films.

Home media
Punch-Drunk Love was released on VHS and DVD by Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment on June 24, 2003.

The Criterion Collection released the film on Blu-ray on November 2016 with a restored HD transfer, the first time the company had done so for a Paul Thomas Anderson or Adam Sandler film. It has a behind-the-scenes featurette about a recording session of the film's soundtrack, a Cannes press conference, deleted scenes, and more.

Soundtrack
The score to Punch-Drunk Love was composed by Jon Brion. As with Magnolia, Brion and director Paul Thomas Anderson collaborated heavily for the production of the film's score. However, rather than scoring the film after rough footage had been shot, Brion made compositions during the filming of Punch-Drunk Love. During the scoring process, Brion would experiment with tones and sounds, carefully making note of what Anderson would respond to. Anderson himself would create the vocal tempos he would envision in the score and use them on set, even to the extent of inspiring the pace of Adam Sandler's performance.

The film's score features heavy use of the harmonium. Brion had introduced Anderson to the harmonium on Magnolia, and Anderson knew he wanted it to feature heavily in this score. Many scenes between Adam Sandler's character and the instrument were inspired by Brion. For instance, Brion once found a harmonium with a hole in its bellows before going on tour with Aimee Mann. To fix the problem, he covered the hole with duct tape. The situation is mirrored in the film.