After making the three-hour Magnolia with a giant ensemble cast and a vast web of interconnected storylines, Paul Thomas Anderson was determined to make his next movie a much simpler endeavor: a 90-minute feature starring Adam Sandler. one of the greatest movies the genre has to offer.
By reinventing stale, familiar tropes and humanizing his characters, Anderson could have his cake and eat it, too, delivering a subversion of romance movies that still works as a touching love story.
Reinvents Tropes: Dark Humor
Plenty of romantic movies have elements of humor, but that humor very rarely has a dark tone, because it’s a tricky line to walk in a sentimental love story. In fact, Hollywood often does the opposite. Studios have taken some pretty dark premises and given them a cute, glossy makeover to turn out movies like Pretty Woman and She’s All That.
Anderson’s script for Punch-Drunk Love has a decidedly pitch-black comic sensibility. Barry’s antics with the phone sex extortion are ripped straight from a Coen brothers movie. And that dark comedy is never a detriment to the sweetness of the love story; if anything, it reinforces it.
Great Love Story: The Characters Feel Real
The difference between a terrible rom-com and a brilliant one is whether or not the characters ring true. If they feel like real people with real flaws who really fall in love with each other, like Harry Burns and Sally Albright or Alvy Singer and Annie Hall, then the movie is going to work. If they don’t, like countless lesser rom-coms, then it’s guaranteed to fail.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s creations in Punch-Drunk Love feel like real people. There’s an abundance of universal humanity in both Barry and Lena that puts the movie a cut above most of its peers.
Reinvents Tropes: The Male Lead Has Serious Emotional Issues
It’s not uncommon for the male protagonists of romance movies to have some kind of emotional problem, like a refusal to grow up or a fear of commitment, but Barry Egan’s emotional problems aren’t the typical macho dude stuff; he suffers from really serious undiagnosed issues.
He has little to no social skills, experiences massive mood swings, and is prone to rage-filled outbursts. Barry sums up his own issues perfectly in one poignant line: “I don’t know if there’s anything wrong because I don’t know how other people are.”
Great Love Story: Adam Sandler And Emily Watson Share Terrific Chemistry
Well-matched leads are integral to any great romance movie and Punch-Drunk Love’s central couple is played by two incredible actors. Emily Watson’s talent has never been called into question, but Adam Sandler has legions of detractors who know him as the Grown Ups guy and think he’s incapable of giving a strong performance. He’s consistently proven those naysayers wrong with gripping dramatic performances in movies like Uncut Gems, The Meyerowitz Stories, and indeed Punch-Drunk Love.
Sandler and Watson were perfectly matched in the roles of Barry and Lena. They’re believably nervous during their first couple of encounters (especially Barry), and eventually believably fall in love. Few on-screen couples feel as tragically real and human as these two.
Reinvents Tropes: Emotionally Stunted Man-Child
The man-child is a common trope in the rom-com genre. In countless movies, a slacker stuck in a state of arrested development meets a level-headed, responsible, career-driven woman and he has to grow up or she’ll leave him.
In fact, early Adam Sandler movies helped to create this trope. In Punch-Drunk Love, Sandler deconstructs the emotionally stunted man-children he played in his early movies, like Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison (the dual namesakes of his production company), to demonstrate that real-life versions of these characters would be kind of terrifying.
Great Love Story: Barry’s Monologue About The Power Of Love Works Because It’s True
When Barry drives across the country to confront Dean at the mattress store, he matches Dean’s own intimidation level and delivers a powerful monologue about the power of love and everything that being in love makes him capable of.
There are many sweeping monologues like this in the history of romantic movies and they usually come off as corny, but Barry’s monologue in Punch-Drunk Love works because every word of it is true.
Reinvents Tropes: The Power Of Love Yields Actual Strength
The power of love is a common theme in romance movies and Punch-Drunk Love addresses it directly in Barry’s speech to Dean, but the movie also posits that the power of love yields real, tangible strength, like a parent’s ability to lift a car to save their child.
When the blond brothers ram into Barry’s car and injure Lena, he takes up a tire iron and singlehandedly beats all four of them to a pulp. Love is also shown to give Barry confidence in his face-to-face confrontation with Dean.
Great Love Story: There’s A Sobering Reality On Top Of Hollywood Whimsy
In a way, Punch-Drunk Love repackages the familiar Hollywood love story with a sobering reality. Most movie romances ignore the ugly side of humanity and present two perfect, beautiful people who instantly fall in love with each other and live happily ever after.
Anderson makes it clear in Punch-Drunk Love that it’s impossible to be happy all the time and everybody, at some point or another, finds themselves dealing with very difficult thoughts and emotions.
Reinvents Tropes: No Wedding At The End
It’s traditional for movies about love to end with the two leads getting married. Not only is it one of the most clichéd ways to end a movie; it also reinforces the idea that marriage is the only path to happiness.
There’s no wedding at the end of Punch-Drunk Love. Barry pledges himself to Lena — telling her that he’ll use his frequent flyer miles to accompany her on all her business trips — which is a very sweet act representative of their relationship.
Great Love Story: Happily Ever After
While Barry and Lena don’t get married at the end of Punch-Drunk Love, there is a happily-ever-after element to the movie’s final scene as Barry races to Lena’s apartment, explains everything, and promises to be there for her.
It’s unclear if Barry and Lena will be together forever, or if Barry is really changed and isn’t going to return to his problematic behavior somewhere down the line, but it is clear that they’re in love and, at least for the time being, they want to be together.
