Barry Egan has problems fitting in. Subjected to humiliation for years by his interfering sisters, he is shy and awkward, and prone to outbursts of violent rage. He lives alone, never travels, likes his human contact to be mediated through the telephone, and is obsessed with the special coupon offers found on supermarket products. Yet the unexpected arrival of both a used harmonium and Lena Leonard at his workplace early one morning fills Barry's life with a new sense of purpose.

With lines like 'I'm looking at your lovely face and I just want to smash it', 'Punch-Drunk Love' is a romantic comedy like no other, quirky and full of surprises. Thanks to Paul Thomas Anderson's tight script and direction, the film's many strange, often surreal details often turn out to be relevant in delightfully unexpected ways. Although it is an intimate affair, shorter in length and smaller in scale than Anderson's previous films ('Boogie Nights' and 'Magnolia'), it still shares with those epics a concern for coincidence and miracle.

One of those miracles is the central performance which Anderson has managed to draw from Adam Sandler as Barry. Instead of relying on Sandler's loyal 'Saturday Night Live' fanbase, who will apparently cough up good money to see Sandler in any old role, however basic and basically annoying ('The Wedding Singer', 'The Water Boy', 'Mr Deeds', etc.), Anderson has written a complex, deeply flawed character for Sandler, and Sandler in turn proves up to the challenge. The role of Lena is somewhat overshadowed by Barry's, and might have been more developed, but Emily Watson is, as always, a credible screen presence. Philip Seymour Hoffman, a regular in Anderson's films, here plays very much against type as Dean, a blackmailing mattress salesman whose trigger-response anger is a match for Barry's.

All in all, 'Punch-Drunk Love' is an eccentric entertainent which proves that even the most damaged and unwanted of instruments can, if treated with the right care, play a new tune. Recommended.

Anton Bitel, 26.01.02