Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 37 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 189 Ratings

  • Starring: Adam Sandler, Emily Watson
  • Summary: Paul Thomas Anderson's fourth film features Sandler as a lonely man with serious emotional issues. As he concocts a scheme involving frequent flier miles and copious amounts of pudding, he finds himself both falling prey to a phone-sex scam and falling in love with his sister's colleague.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 33 out of 37
  2. Negative: 2 out of 37
  1. With its feverish, percussive soundtrack and bravura cinematography, is like a bolt from the blue, chock-full of unexpected delight.
  2. Reviewed by: Darrin Keene
    80
    It works because of Anderson's ability to challenge viewer expectations. Instead of making his principal actors change, he manipulates the story and dialogue to match their characters. His exquisite art-house camera shots and sense of pacing set Sandler up to do his usual thing in an almost poetic manner.
  3. 50
    As elegantly crafted as it often is, Anderson's movie is essentially a one-trick pony that, hampered by an undeveloped script, ultimately pulls up lame.
  4. Punch-Drunk Love buries a terrific performance by Adam Sandler under a heap of faux cleverness, meaningless symbolism and irritating mannerisms.

See all 37 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 65 out of 111
  2. Negative: 41 out of 111
  1. DrewD.
    10
    It is really a testament to the sadness of America that half of them cannot appreciate a film like this. Most of them just think it is dumb--they say it is "disjointed" or that the leads have "no chemistry". This is what doing nothing but watching TV and standard Hollywood films does to your brain: you can't understand real human relationships (which are not "explainable" and are in fact "random", at least for most of us), you can't empathize with those who clearly have some sort of disorder, and can't figure out the unity of an actually pretty straightforward film, by artistic cinematic standards. Then, perhaps even worse, there are a group who recognize that they can't understand the film, but are too proud to admit it and accuse the film of being "pretentious" and full of "fake symbolism". I am not surprised though, that those who were expecting a standard Adam Sandler film, where you are supposed to laugh at someone who is different, didn't like this film, where you are supposed to feel for someone who is different. A shame. Expand
  2. Paul Thomas Anderson, conquering a genre new for him, succeeds brilliantly. I don't think Anderson is humanly capable of making a bad movie.
  3. Without doubt the best performance I
  4. JacintaG.
    4
    I'm all for slow, quirky films- but this was a complete bore. It's a crap movie. There was a peep or brilliance shining through at some point, but was squashed flat by the non-existent a plot. Don't waste your money. Expand

See all 111 User Reviews

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