The reinvention of Sandler, of course, is the big sell and it takes a film-maker of Anderson’s vision to see in his cartoonish oeuvre the potential for softness and sympathy.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 14, 2025

Odd romantic journey for adults and older teens.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 28, 2010

It's a romantic comedy on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

| Nov 1, 2007

The film looks good and has its funny moments, but too often one senses Anderson straining to impress...

| Jun 24, 2006

A love-letter to the golden age of film, Anderson's opus is the equivalent of a jubilant Technicolor MGM romantic musical, except without the requisite singing and dancing and crossed with a stark cynicism that is Sandler's hallmark.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 27, 2003

Nothing makes much sense, and the Watson character would have run a mile from Sandler, who performs like Jerry Lewis at his least endearing.

| Mar 25, 2003

A movie of undeniable power and strangeness.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 4, 2003

Anderson has a firm grip on Sandler's dangerous essence and draws it out in an astonishing performance.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 2, 2003

Both funny and moving -- profoundly odd, but also oddly profound.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 7, 2003

Audiences are likely to feel a bit punch drunk themselves as they try to make sense of this odd romantic journey with its offbeat dualities, combining extremes of chaos and harmony and love and anger.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 4, 2002

It is quite a vision.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Nov 2, 2002

Despite its title, Punch-Drunk Love is never heavy-handed. The jabs it employs are short, carefully placed and dead-center.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 25, 2002

Easily one of the best and most exciting movies of the year.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 25, 2002

[Anderson] uses a hit-or-miss aesthetic that hits often enough to keep the film entertaining even if none of it makes a lick of sense.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Oct 25, 2002

It's wacky. It's unpredictable. It's sure to give pause to Sandler fans and, smaller in number but every bit as dedicated, to Watson admirers too.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 25, 2002

Director Paul Thomas Anderson hasn't reinvented Sandler; he's just allowed those of us who tired very quickly of his innocent naif shtick to see how effectively it can be put in the service of something to care about.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 25, 2002

Everything about Punch-Drunk Love works in a Being John Malkovich sort of way save one. Sandler. When your star doesn't work, it's hard to get us to buy into the rest of a movie as unusual as this.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 25, 2002

In Punch-Drunk Love, Adam Sandler doesn't so much discard his old persona as illuminate it, breathing life into the cardboard characters that populated his earlier films.

Full Review | Oct 25, 2002

How odd that a tribute to a wildly theatrical presence should turn out so dull and prosaic.

Full Review | Oct 23, 2002

It is already apparent that Punch-Drunk Love will not be everyone's cup of tea, but nonetheless Mr. Anderson has found a way to fashion a passionate romance out of the materials of postmodern chaos.

| Oct 23, 2002