Review of Punch-Drunk Love (2002) by Nick O — 25 Jan 2014

REWATCH: I'd call "Punch-Drunk Love" an incomparable masterpiece if only every film Paul Thomas Anderson has made since "Boogie Nights" (can you believe I've still not yet seen "Hard Eight"? So dumb of me) wasn't an earth-shattering, life-changing, perception-altering not strictly cinematic, but cultural and artistic event. Sure there's Scorsese and Bergman and Wilder, and Lynch and Kubrick may have gotten to me first in terms of warping my fragile little mind as to how the medium of film can be twisted and hell-bent into emotional resonance that transcends the mere frame of image...look, put simply, my mouth has, since Marky Mark tried to one-up Jake LaMotta's priceless mirror monologue at the end of "Raging Bull", been proudly wrapped around P.T. Anderson's skyscraper-sized cock. He may have inherited some of his more voyeuristic intentions from his own filmmaker heroes, but Anderson constantly packs so much of a punch with SUCH impressive, vibrant and original skill, he's sort of like the "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea", "Nevermind", "Exile on Main Street" AND "Pet Sounds" of the movie world all in one. Never forgetting to feel, to excite, to sweep with substance in addition to style.

And oh, that style, both directorial- and writing-wise. I don't think I could ever truly choose a FAVORITE PTA film, though "Punch-Drunk Love" is at the very least, if not THE best, one of the greatest romantic comedies of all time. It's both the logical follow-up to the blissful rapture of the third act of "Magnolia", and a spiritual precursor to 2012's so-far new decade watermark "The Master". And yet I would argue "PDL" remains Anderson's most personal exercise to date. If "Boogie Nights" was his dick-swinging ode to the '70s heyday of Scorsese and Coppola; "Magnolia" his Altman-skewering mosaic; "There Will Be Blood" and "The Master" his Huston-inspired, literary-rich tales of caution and complexity, well then that makes "Punch-Drunk Love"...well, what DOES that make "Punch-Drunk Love"? It has to be the man's strangest and zippiest screenplay (at a relatively scant 95 minutes long it's by far his shortest film.) I want to say it owes a lot to Jim Jarmusch, yet...the exact point of reference I can't quite put my finger on.

My guess is like Sofia Coppola's "Lost in Translation" or Spike Jonze's recent "Her", "Punch-Drunk Love" derives most of its anxiety-ridden set pieces and surreal, dream-like visual lyricism from the three-course relationship meal of loneliness, first love and finally and unfortunately breaking up and struggling to make amends. Obviously that's all incredibly personal, but it's well-known Anderson and Fiona Apple were romantically linked at an elongated point in the mid-'90s. Like "Magnolia", "PDL" is a movie about the inexplicable. "PDL" is structured to almost register as a brief, clear adjustment among analog static, elliptical but familiar enough to...

Gah, I don't know. So much could be written about this movie by people far smarter than I. All I can say is it still leaves me speechless. Like the best of sweet nothings, if you listen closely, let the beautiful ambiance wash over you, you'll find "Punch-Drunk Love" has just about everything to say about everything. (100/100).