Punch-Drunk Love

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Punch-Drunk Love
theatrical poster
Directed by	Paul Thomas Anderson
Produced by	Paul Thomas Anderson Daniel Lupi Joanne Sellar
Written by	Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring	Adam Sandler Emily Watson Philip Seymour Hoffman
Music by	Jon Brion
Cinematography	Robert Elswit
Editing by	Leslie Jones
Distributed by	Revolution Studios
Release date(s)	November 1, 2002
Running time	95 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$25,000,000 (estimated)
Gross revenue	$24,665,649 (worldwide)
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Punch-Drunk Love is a 2002 film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Adam Sandler and Emily Watson star. Anderson regulars Philip Seymour Hoffman and Luis Guzmán also appear.

Sandler won positive reviews for his role in his first major departure from the crass comedies which made him a star. Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times that "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."^[1] He also won Best Actor at the Gijón International Film Festival and received a Golden Globe nomination.

Although the film was well received by critics it was not successful at the US box-office. The film had a $25,000,000 budget and grossed about $17,000,000 at the domestic box office (the studio receives about half the gross).

The movie features the video artwork of Jeremy Blake as visual interludes.

1 Plot summary
2 Score and soundtrack
3 Trivia
4 References
- 4.1 Footnotes
5 External links

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Barry finds a Harmonium

Barry Egan (Sandler) owns a company that markets themed toilet plungers ("fungers") and other novelty items. He has seven overbearing sisters who ridicule him regularly, and leads a very lonely life punctuated by fits of rage. In the span of one morning, he witnesses a bizarre car accident, picks up an abandoned harmonium from the street, and encounters Lena Leonard (Watson), who he later learns orchestrated the meeting after seeing him in a family picture belonging to his sister Elizabeth (Mary Lynn Rajskub), a co-worker of Lena's.

Barry tries to find solace by calling a phone sex hotline for conversation, but the operator then attempts to extort money from him and send her four henchmen brothers after him. 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 (based on the true story of David Phillips). After Lena leaves for Hawaii on a business trip, Barry decides to follow her. He arrives and calls one of his manipulative sisters on a payphone to ask what hotel Lena is staying in. She begins to belittle and question him but finds herself the receiving end of a nasty verbal tirade from Barry. She gives Barry the name of the hotel and he eventually finds where she is staying. At first, Barry explains that he is in Hawaii on a business trip by coincidence, but he soon admits to her that he came to pursue a romantic relationship.

After they return home, while Barry is driving with Lena, the four brothers ram their car into Barry's, leaving Lena mildly injured. An outraged Barry attacks the four henchmen brothers with a tire iron before taking Lena to the hospital. Frantically, he leaves her at the hospital and tries to end the harassment from the brothers by calling the phone-sex line and speaking to the "manager", who is in reality Dean Trumbell (Hoffman), an owner of a mattress store. Barry then drives to Provo, Utah to confront him in person. Surprised at his visit, Trumbell shows his true colors when, after Barry angrily tells him to leave him and Lena alone, he goes scampering for his office to hide.

When Barry returns, he tells Lena his story and asks for her forgiveness, pledging that he'll use his frequent-flier miles to accompany her on all her future trips. The final shot of the movie shows Lena approaching Barry in his office while he plays the harmonium. She puts his arms around him and says, "Well, here we go."

[edit] Score and soundtrack

Main article: Punch-Drunk Love (soundtrack)

Barry and Lena kiss in a silhouette

The score to Punch-Drunk Love was composed by Jon Brion. As with the previous film 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 created 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 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, an instrument that Anderson knew he wanted in the film before he had even completed the script. Brion introduced Anderson to this instrument and 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. An identical situation is found in the film.

One particular standout track in the film is a version "He Needs Me" from the 1980 Robert Altman movie Popeye with vocals by Shelley Duvall. The song, slightly rescored by Brion and Jonathan Karp, cues during Barry's trip to Hawaii to meet Lena. The song comes to a climax as they kiss while a crowd passes them by.

[edit] Trivia

The PhotoCall: Adam Sandler, Paul Thomas Anderson, Emily Watson and Philip Seymour Hoffman at Cannes in 2002

The pudding plot and related dialogue is based on the story of David Phillips, who earned 1.25 million frequent-flier miles using the scheme. Another promotion Phillips undertook, involving flying on South and Central American airlines within a limited time frame, was also included in the movie but later cut.
Working titles included Punchdrunk Knuckle Love, Just Desserts and The X-4 Project. Visually echoing the working title Punchdrunk Knuckle Love, the word "love" appears as a bruise across Barry's knuckles about 40 minutes into the film when Barry punches the map in his office over frustration at the news that his frequent-flier miles will not be processed in time to allow him to rendez-vous with Lena.
Barry often plays the same five notes whenever he's at the harmonium. The five notes he plays are B, Bb, A, C, and D (in that order). These five notes are heard throughout the film as parts of Jon Brion's score (particularly in "Punch-Drunk Melody", the film's love theme). The notes can also be heard in various sound effects (such as in the beeping of a truck's horn in one scene). The five note melody was inspired by Anderson and Brion's mutual affection towards Close Encounters of the Third Kind, famous for its alien five note melody. At the end of the film, Barry plays a melody of C, E and A. These notes make up the chord A minor and are also heard as a main theme in the film (notably in Brion's "Here We Go").
The four blond brothers who go after Barry and to beat him up are actually brothers in real life.
During the scene where Barry is at the supermarket looking for the cheapest Healthy Choice food item, he is being followed by an out-of-focus character in a red outfit. It's Emily Watson's character, before they've been introduced.
The scene in which Egan first goes through the supermarket is composed as an homage to Andreas Gursky's photograph "99 cent".
The exterior Hawaiian hotel shots, including the promotional silhouette, were filmed at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, the historic pink hotel on Waikiki beach in Honolulu. (The interior shots are not of the Royal Hawaiian.)
The part of Dean Trumbell was originally to be played by Sean Penn, who had to drop out.
Anderson originally wanted John C. Reilly to be cast as one of the four blond brothers.
Early in the film, Barry says "Business is very food" instead of "Business is very good" and his sister Elizabeth points out his mistake. In the script, "food" was simply a typo Anderson made. Anderson decided to keep it in the film.
Punch-Drunk Love is actor Bill Nighy's favorite film.