Convoluted 'Punch Drunk Love' leaves unpleasant hangover

A man in a blue suit sits at a lone desk in the corner of a warehouse. He is on the phone and, from what we can hear of his conversation, it seems as if he's talking to someone in the public relations department of a large corporation. He ends his conversation, walks out of the warehouse into the glaring morning sun and stops at the curb of the street. At that very moment, there is a car accident. Next, a van comes hurtling by, stops, and deposits a small piano. The van's occupants then slam the door closed and speed off. The man walks back into the warehouse.

Make sense to you?

It certainly didn't to me at the time. And, in the ninety-minute movie that follows, nothing becomes much clearer.

I'm talking about "Punch Drunk Love," Adam Sandler's follow-up to the recent "Mr. Deeds." Costarring Emily Watson (most recently seen in 2001's "Gosford Park"), the film is currently playing at the Garden Theater.

I adored Adam Sandler during his Saturday Night Live days. Who hasn't laughed as the subtitles scrolled by during his flamboyant portrayal of Opera Man, felt pity for the ever-clueless Canteen Boy or sang along as "The Hanukah Song" peaked in radio play during the holiday season?

Sandler consistently plays off-kilter characters who, though endearing, seem to have a few chromosomes missing. In his dramedy debut, one hoped that his childish comedy would somehow metaphorphize into somewhat adult zaniness.

Yes, Adam Sandler has indeed grown up. However, with his limited acting range, what used to be a cute and clueless character is now one that's simply stupid and has anger management problems.

Sandler's character – Barry Egan, the early 30-something manager of a plunger business – starts off with a great deal of potential. The sole brother in a family of seven girls, he's been subjected to incessant (and unimaginative) teasing his whole life. "Remember when we used to call you 'Gay Boy' and you used to get so upset?" his numerous sisters taunt him upon his arrival at a family function.

He's just a lonely guy who one night decides to call a phone sex line for some companionship. Nothing dirty, just a nice conversation.

The next morning, as he's dashing off to work, the phone rings and on the other line is none other than the girl from the phone sex line he spoke with the night before. She needs money.

His refusal to grant that wish is in vain, however, as she has his credit card number, all his contact information and his social security number. She also apparently has a connection with a team of hit men precisely for this purpose – to rob the alleged perverts who call the line.

Forty-five minutes into the movie, inexplicable brilliant colors flash across the screen and the change of location is announced through text: "Provost, Utah." It is here that the owner of a mattress store and his four blond and indistinguishable hit men have set up their relationship with the phone sex line. Sandler made that one fateful phone call and now they're hot on his trail.

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Still confused? I was too. And I sat there for the whole hour and a half. The whole plot of "Punch Drunk Love" is convoluted – moving from California to Hawaii to Utah. There's the love story, Sandler's relationship with his cruel sisters, the hit man plot, and another storyline where Sandler's taking advantage of a promotion from Healthy Choice which gives 500 frequent flier miles for each 10 products purchased. (Sandler suspects the marketing campaign was intended to push the pricey Chicken Teriyaki, but realizes that he can buy 4-packs of pudding for just a dollar, which he believes will be his ticket to travel anywhere he wants.)

And then there's the piano (the one dropped off on the curb in the opening scene) which plays a pivotal role in the movie, but what that role is exactly, I'm still not sure. Director Paul Thomas Anderson seems to feel the need to take this risks with his movies – directing the daring "Boogie Nights" in 1997 and then "Magnolia" (with Tom Cruise) in 1999, a movie that has much of the same inexplicable symbols as this one.

The title hints that the story will be about Egan's growth from a loner to a lover. His love affair with Watson, however, never develops to anything more than two desperate people clinging to each other. What is billed as "punch drunk" starts to seem more like just ridiculously inebriated.

The sound design of the movie, however, made the movie worth seeing for me. This isn't a film saturated with an MTV-ready soundtrack. In fact, in the first ten minutes of the movie, the only sounds are completely organic – Sandler's footsteps, his breath, the ringing of a phone, the creak of a door. The first time a seemingly independent soundtrack begins, Sandler's character begins to plunk out notes on the piano, essentially accompanying the background music he's not even supposed to be hearing in this fictional world of the film.

In the moments where Sandler is just allowed to be quiet, the movie reaches its peaks. It's when his violence takes over – smashing the glass doors in his sister's house, tearing apart a restaurant bathroom when he gets nervous on his first date with Watson, taking out the hit men with a crow bar – that it becomes almost unbearable to watch.

Perhaps Anderson thought his development was clear enough from the movement of his anger from private to public. Perhaps he thought that audiences would cheer once Sandler stops beating up on inanimate objects and finally starts kicking some butt.

If he did, he thought wrong.

"Punch Drunk Love" is definitely a movie worth going to see for the movie-going experience, rather than the film itself. See if you can last the whole time (I've only walked out of one other movie in my life, but this was very nearly the second one). Watch Adam Sandler doing something quite different. Watch the pretty bright colors occasionally swirl across the screen, having no connection to this movie whatsoever (but looking like they could have come straight out of "Austin Powers 2").

And see if you can figure out what the hell the piano's supposed to mean. Feel free to let me know.