The first viewing of Punch-Drunk Love confused me so that I had little idea what reaction to have to it (eventually and arbitrarily settling on an emphatic “pretty good, maybe, I guess”). There were three-and-a-half liters of captivating elements, no doubt -- the harmonium, the pudding, the denouement of the phone-sex subplot, Emily Watson, a satisfying iconic use of Adam Sandler, the silhouette kiss, “He Needs Me,” any many others, but I wasn’t sure the film cohered thematically (in fact, I suspected that Punch-Drunk didn’t have a theme, besides perhaps hearkening back to Stanley’s frog-watching response of “This is something that happens”). Just as significantly, the Barry/Lena relationship -- the focus of the film -- seemed haphazard, silly, not destined to last.
The second viewing, however, made it clear that Punch-Drunk Love has implicit quotation marks before the “L” and after the “e.” Anderson has made a film about the vertiginous, giddy period that marks the beginning of a romance: that information-gathering stage of a relationship where exhilaration is halved with awkwardness, where slight and tentative physical advances are met in kind, where adult responsibilities are ignored, where all you can possibly think about is her her her her her. And given that foundation to the film, every event that follows makes a perverse kind of sense because they are all symbolic of the non-linear, non-logical mindset that comes from this newfound “love.” (That’s why Adam Sandler is the perfect choice of actor for Anderson’s film: His persona -- only barely changed here -- comes prepackaged with the non-linear, non-logical mindset.) I don’t believe Barry and Lena will remain as a couple for more than a few more months, but that’s not the point; the point is that in this moment, they can see themselves spooning each other in a king-size bed at a Los Angeles nursing home in fifty years. Anything can happen, they believe. As a result, the deception and self-deception that frequent many romances’ initial stages are explicit in Barry and Lena’s, and most of the main plot points of the film echo that deception: Barry’s lies to his sisters, the entire phone-sex storyline, and the self-deception of Barry believing he could cash in his pudding on a moment’s notice. Punch-Drunk Love is an inelegant, electrifying, adoring first kiss stretched out to a stylized 90 minutes. How can that not be loved?
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
i sincerely do not know what you are doing here. are you lost? were you
looking for your delicate calico cat, and did you follow her up two flights of stairs
to this room? she is not here. she was here, yes. we gave her a warm bowl of milk, we talked with her about campaign finance reform for a time, and then she bid us good day. i believe she was
going to the post office two blocks down, but i don't quite recall.
for surely you did
not find your way from prinsiana, the least traveled site on
the internet. if you did, though, perhaps you are looking for humor. perhaps you are looking for profundity. perhaps you are looking for answers.
i'm sorry, but you shall go naught-for-three.
