Punch-Drunk Love

I found the movie Punch-Drunk Love to be very confusing, and dull. Although this movie kept me interested in the end, I found it frustrating. I was hoping that some truths, or questions would be answered and revealed, but instead continued in it’s insane plot of anger, love, revenge, and random moments on the screen when you would see an array of several colors. When rating a movie personally I consider how well I liked the overall plot, how well the acting was, and whether or not I would recommend it to another person. I would have to say that I would not recommend this to another person, for the plot was simple, yet made no sense. Also the acting was strange, and jumpy, even if that was how the characters were suppose to be, something just didn’t flow in it for me. This coincides with the website rotten tomatoes average 3.5 out of 10 rating for the movie.

However, when looking past my own criticism, I find the character of Barry Egan to be unique. He’s somewhat of an awkward human being as he likes things neat, and planned out. He has seven sisters in which are constantly in his business, and drives him a bit over the edge, as he possess some serious anger issues. This unique character draws the viewer in as you are curious to his character. This would be described in the book The Art of Film Watching as creating an emotional attachment and interest in the character. His anger strikes kind of become a caricature as described in the book as “exaggerated or distorted dominant features or personality traits.” (pg.66) Barry seems so quiet, nervous and shy, and then out of nowhere he punches a glass, or destroys an entire bathroom. Barry falls for a woman who is also socially awkward, and thus the two ends up falling in love due to their similar character traits. Barry Egan’s character would not be considered a stereotype, for you never know what is going to happen with him, he is somewhat of a social mystery. He is somewhat a static character as he remains the same throughout the film, but yet his actions are still not predictable, and he does not undergo any important change throughout the film.

The plot of the film does develop in a chronological structure with the one plot about a girl named Georgia. Barry gets caught up in a scam one night when wishing to simply call upon a call girl. His intentions were innocent in the end; however, he finds himself being stalked by this girl who is demanding money. The conflict develops as Barry refuses to give money, and “Georgia” sends “brothers” to mug him for money. They continually harass Barry until one night, his new socially awkward dream girl Lena is hurt in the mixture of things. Barry tracks them down in which becomes the climax and uses his trait of anger to solve things. This would be considered the resolution, as he ends the scandal, because he wants purely take care of Lena and make sure it never happens again. This Plot is unified, and thus makes the argument that it is a good story and described in the book. The book states: “ a good story is unified in plot…a unified plot focuses on a single thread of continuous action where one event leads to another naturally and logically”. (pg. 42)

The title could indicate how Barry feels while he's with Lena. He falls for Lena so quickly and with such emotion, he doesn't quite know how to handle it and feels a bit "punch-drunk", a kind of stupor feeling. One symbol of his love for Lena could be correlated to the harmonium he comes across randomly. Although I was quite confused on the story of the harmonium, it came to him out of nowhere, just like Lena. At one point in the film, Lena asked him about it and told him that it was his. I have no idea if it was from her, or what that even meant. Barry found the harmonium peaceful and calming, like he did with Lena. The day that he decided to return the harmonium back to the street where he found it, it was ran over and destroyed. This parallels to Lena getting hurt in the car accident.

This movie is a comedy which Adam Sandler plays a wonderful roll as a unique, shy, awkward character Barry Egan. His usually casting includes often the same type of characters which give kudos to the casting for the movie to choose someone who would act the character to the tee. Although I found the movie difficult to understand the meaning, it provided good plot, good casting, good characterization, and curiosity.



Boggs, Joseph, & Petrie, Dennis. (2008). The Art of watching films. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill College.

Flixter Inc. Punch drunk love (2002). Retrieved from http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/punchdrunk_love/?critic=3

Punch-Drunk love. DVD. Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson. Perf. Adam Sandler, Emily Watson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Luis Guzman. Sony Pictures Entertainment, 2002 [2002]