Punch-Drunk Love shows what happens when a Hollywood auteur decides to make an Adam Sandler flick. Director P.T. Anderson takes the typical Sandler movie formula and strips it to its bare bones, eliminating all the useless junk that usually attaches itself to a Sandler project. In this way, Anderson exposes Sandler, revealing his soul virtually naked for all to see. And the surprise? We find out what it truly is about Sandler's persona that makes audiences root for him.

Consider the plot. Sandler plays a man who is more like a child in the way he simplistically forges through life. He has emotional problems -- he restrains negative feelings until he either bursts out in anger or in tears. He has been oppressed since childhood by close relatives -- in this case, seven over-bearing sisters. He gets in trouble with an evil force who doesn't understand who he really is. In the meantime, he meets a pretty, tolerant woman who seems to love him despite all of his inherent loser/freak-like qualities. Sound familiar? So far, the typical Sandler movie elements (as outlined by critic Stephen Himes in one of his reviews) are all in place.

This time, however, no outer construct gets in the way -- no tacked-on gimmick, no stories about him being a waterboy or a wedding singer, no golf jokes, '80s references, or adoptions of little boys. Punch-Drunk Love is about as plain as one can make it. Sandler has a self-owned business where he sells merchandise to hotel chains, but this just serves as background and not as the primary source of humor. The girl he meets literally comes from nowhere -- no contrived reason for their meeting exists, and the girl is attracted to him almost without question. The villains of the movie, a group of extortionist thugs who operate under the guise of a phone-sex business, attack due to poor logic. Everything that usually happens in a Sandler movie happens in this movie, only, this time, why they happen isn't as important as getting to know the guy they're happening to.

And Anderson knows his guy. He realizes Sandler connects best with his audience through raw emotion -- the way Sandler's reactions to unfamiliar or uncomfortable situations make viewers laugh, the way they cheer for him whenever he unleashes his anger in the face of forces that would keep a decent schmo down. But in Sandler's other movies, these are usually portrayed with a good deal of histrionics -- the gags are obvious, and the anger is too readily played for a laugh.

With Anderson's version of Sandler, softer, more subtle moments are involved. Sandler gets a lot of time just to stare at things and look perplexed. We are allowed to see how his character thinks, how deep his good-nature lies (exemplified by a wonderful sequence in which he answers several phone calls in a row from his sisters), and how awkwardly lonely he is. We are not being manipulated to feel pity for him, nor do we have his underdog status so obviously pointed out to us. The pathos we feel for him comes from lingering moments -- shots of him sitting, scenes of him doing business, views of his sad silhouette. Since he's quirky, as usual, he indeed does many things that make us laugh, but we laugh now because of how we feel about him in our gut, not because of some belaboured joke. And  we can actually see the anger within him seething -- other Sandler movies play his outbursts too close to the surface and use it as a selling point; here, his rage bursts like a balloon you didn't notice floating too close to a source of heat.

Little else attempts to distract us from the inner Sandler here, not even a change of wardrobe -- he wears the same blue suit almost throughout the whole movie. His emotions take center stage, triggering actions that are barely pre-meditated. This movie, after all, isn't about who Sandler is on a superficial level -- it's about what he feels. Anderson employs washed-out, cool-toned photography (by Robert Elswit) to highlight the feel of desolation (the locale of Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley helps). He uses constrasting bright lights and shadows to emphasize isolation and a dissonant percussive background score (by Jon Brion) to illustrate the scatterbrained stress inside Sandler's head. And intermittent scenes of abstract colored stripes, accompanied by a strange mix of music, express the strain of Sandler's pent-up feelings.

Anderson then puts everything on a path toward love. Sandler's character is a jumbled mess until he slowly realizes the character Emily Watson (Gosford Park) plays is who he wants to be with. His spontaneous pursuit of her gives his emotions a purpose and a focus. By the time he gets going, his character has been well-established and is quite easy to cheer on. And Anderson masterfully shifts the mood of the movie to the feeling its title describes. Slowly and surely, as Sandler's character gains direction, he is instilled with true happiness and determination. And Anderson must be credited with at least one stroke of pure genius -- digging up a Shelley Duvall-sung Harry Nilsson song from Robert Altman's Popeye and using it to far greater effect than that original movie ever did. "He Needs Me" is this movie's theme, and it plays like a dizzying, intoxicating tune from a carousel that will never end.

Some people may have a problem with the relative lack of dimension in the character Watson plays, but I think she was purposely drawn this way. The female lead of any Sandler comedy never needed a personality -- she always fulfilled the role of the ultimate prize: the understanding pretty girl who  somehow redeems the man-child. So Anderson doesn't even try to depict the woman as more than that in Punch-Drunk Love. He makes Watson's appearance seem symbolic -- when we first meet her, she stands on the right side of the screen while talking to Sandler, engulfed alone in bright white light like an angel or a gift from heaven. And that's her part, plain and simple -- divine intervention in the form of an angel, pure and loving, a trigger for Sandler's progressive emotional development. Metaphorically, Sandler's emotional progress is also tracked by another divine gift -- a harmonium dropped in Sandler's lap at the beginning of the movie. As he grows, he continues to fix up the damaged instrument. It travels a parallel course with his maturity.

Because it wouldn't be Sandler movie without a few sight gags, quite a few unexpected ones appear in Punch-Drunk Love.  And what would a Sandler movie be without a comeuppance for the bad guys? In the strangest of all Anderson's touches, Philip Seymour Hoffman (Red Dragon) portrays the source of evil. His character is an animal of a man, wretched and obscene. In any other Sandler movie, the final confrontation would no doubt be physical. Leave it to Anderson to try it another way.

After all is said and done, one question remains: Why Adam Sandler? Is there something so striking about his success in movies that it had to be examined by a "serious" filmmaker? Maybe there doesn't need to be a reason; I, for one, am extremely happy with the result. I've never felt so strongly about seeing Sandler safely arrive at a happy ending. When  he was being attacked by thugs, I felt true fear for him, and I never had that feeling in any other Sandler movie. As for Anderson, this is the first of his movies I've enjoyed completely. I found both Boogie Nights and Magnolia a bit overblown. Punch-Drunk Love, much more humble and light on its feet, doesn't have a big goal in mind. As a singular character study, it's perfect. It's also the year's sweetest movie. 

(Review also posted at www.windowtothemovies.com)

Released by Columbia Pictures and rated "R" for strong language including a scene of sexual dialogue.