A Structural Analysis of Punch Drunk Love

Punch Drunk adj

1. Demonstrating or characteristic of the behaviour of a person who has suffered repeated blows to the head, esp a professional boxer

2. dazed; stupefied

            The movie that I have selected to be analyze is Punch Drunk Love(2002), written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson(PTA).  It is critically acclaimed movie that won best director and received a nomination for Palm d’Or at the prestigious Canne Film Festival.  This is a major feat considering that it stars Adam Sandler, an actor who has a track record for being the same exaggerated, over-the-top character in a series of high concept comedies. In this role PTA managed to find a talent, and a believability in Sandler that no other director had managed to previously capture.  Not only does it star Adam Sandler but the premise has been heard time and time again: an insecure, easily taken advantage of man must transform into a brave, confident man stand up against the oppressors to get the girl of his dreams.  With these ingredients, Punch Drunk Love could have easily gotten lost in a sea of Hollywood’s forgettable romantic comedies. The following analysis will explain how PTA’s careful, yet extensive use of film language and unique story structure manages to elicit an emotional response from its audience and set it apart from other romantic comedies. In order to do this I will breakdown the story by its key plot elements as well as explain his use of symbolism, composition, light, and various other story techniques. 

            Before I can begin the analysis here’s a quick breakdown of the story:

Adam Sandler plays Barry Eagan, an owner of a small business.  He is a business man who is the youngest of eight siblings, all of seven older sisters.  They all make sure to push their ideas about him, manipulate, him and control him.  He feels that he has no one to talk to.  Nobody, to listen to him. In a desperate attempt to be heard he calls a phone sex hotline.  The hotline ends up being a scam to get his credit card information.  Meanwhile he finds the girl of his dreams.  The story Barry’s journey to put an end to these pursuers before he loses his possessions and his newfound love can get hurt.   

            When breaking down this story, my first instinct was that since Barry’s objective is to ‘get the girl’ I assumed that all of the plot points would revolve around this mission.  The reason is that in most movies about a guy going pursuing a girl, the plot points will revolve around this relationship.  For example:

Inciting Incident.- Guy meets girl.

1^st Turning Point: Guy and girl go on a date.

Midpoint- Guy leaves girl or girl leaves guy for someone or something else

2^nd Turning Point- Guy decides he will do whatever it takes to get girl back.

Climax- Some sort of dramatic wedding sequence, airport chase, etc.. he gets her back before she leaves, or is committed to someone else.

Resolution: Guy gets girl.

            Since there are so many movies like this I was accustomed to this type of structure.  But that’s not what Punch Drunk Love is about. This story is not about this girl, she’s actually interested in him throughout the movie, there are no dark moments of her leaving, instead the movie is a character driven story about Barry standing up for himself and becoming confident within his own self.  Lena, rather than being the source of conflict she represents  someone who he can talk to and someone who will listen to him.  In that sense she is t for his change but the story’s dramatic ark. She is what keeps him pushing to move forward. With that said, the key turning points take place at the times when Barry makes a decision to deal with the other people’s taking advantage of him in a new way.  The following paragraphs are the five key plot points that take place in this story about Barry’s transformation into a person who believes in himself. After talking through the plot points I will closely examine the film language in order to explain how this story actually worked.

            In the opening image the world of the story is established quickly and effectively.  The first line of the movie is “yes, I’m still on hold” this summarizes the dramatic conflict in the story,  Barry is a man who is being “put on hold” by the world he lives in.  His sisters are manipulative, and unlikeable, his job is clearly not going well, and he has nobody who he can talk to.  

            The hook occurs when Barry walks outside and sees a car crash and roll violently followed by a harmonium, being placed at Barry’s feet.  This exactly what a hook should do.  It grabs the audience’s attention and gets their mind to be actively engaged in the story.  I mean what’s more engaging then a violent car crash and the ditching of a harmonium out of the blue? 

            The next major beat is when the audience sees Barry lose control for the first time. This is occurs when he breaks three glass doors at his sister’s birthday party, he decides to confide in his brother-in-law, a dentist.  Barry “I don’t like myself sometimes.  Can you help me?... I sometimes cry a lot for no reason”  and then proceeds to break into tears.  The reason this is the inciting incident is because Barry is making his first move towards understanding what his problem is.  It establishes that his dramatic need is to understand who he is and why he feels so weak. This leads to the inciting incident, when he calls the Phone sex line.  Here he is making a desperate move to find someone to talk to.  This leads to Barry searching for a solution to his problems. Within the first fifteen minutes we have seen the protagonist, the object of his desire, we have seen him interact in his world and sympathize for him because we feel discomfort just as he does.

            Barry’s solution is to call a phone sex line.  The morning after Georgia, the girl from the phone sex service, calls him back asking for money.  This is when the audience first finds out about the central conflict of the story, Barry dealing with the phone sex line.  “I have your credit card information”.  While the threat of losing money is obviously a concern for the character, money is not a factor in this story.  The actual conflict is Barry’s fear of being exposed as someone he is not.  Barry is a character who is private by nature is at risk of his reputation being at stake.  Knowing how his sisters tend to act around him, the audience is likely to wonder: “How are his sisters going to react when they find out about this?” This begins the growing tension of the story.

            The next major beat is when Barry is assaulted.  Barry does not stand up for himself.  He goes to the ATM, withdraws the cash, and begins to say he cannot afford this only to receive a punch to the face.   He has not been able to transform into the hero yet.  At this point in the story Barry is still not ready to challenge them, instead he decides to flea the situation and travel to Hawaii to meet up with Lena.   This raises the stakes by reminding Barry that he is in harms way and this problem will not just go away. 

            The midpoint occurs when Barry tries to redeem his Pudding, and finds out that he must wait six to eight weeks.  Now both parts of his story are at a low.  Not only is he in harms way but he has no access to meet up with Lena.  He manages to get to Hawaii anyway, and is refreshed, it is an escape from the phone sex story, a chance for the audience to relax and take a breath.

            The Hawaii sequence is too happy, this is the point of false hope.  It is easy to perceive that something is going to change for the worse.  And it does. A car strikes Barry’s car and they spin out of control.  This is a major beat because this is the first time that the two stories (Barry’s love story and his phone sex conflict) have directly converged.  The convergence of these two stories is the staw that breaks the camels back.  It is the determining moment in which Barry fears he could lose the Lena, the one thing that is most important to him, his dramatic need.  From here on Barry takes on the role of a hero, he has no doubt in his mind what he needs to get done. 

            Now Barry is sick of using phone to communicate.  He will no longer allow himself to be put on hold.  He travels all the way to Utah and addresses the man in charge of the phone sex scam face-to-face.  The mattress man quickly accuses him: “fuck you.  You’re a pervert.  You think you can be a pervert and not pay for it?”.  Barry’s response is “I didn’t do anything.  I’m a nice man and I mind my own business.  So you tell me that’s that before I beat the hell from you.  I have so much strength in me, you have no idea.  I have a love in my life. It makes me stronger than anything you can imagine.  I would say that’s that mattress man.”  Barry is full of self confidence, he knows who he is as a person and will not allow anyone else to influence his thoughts.  Following this is the most brilliant part.  Rather than Barry responding to this situation with violence, he shows that not only is he brave, and strong, but he has enough self-control to not attack this man.  The transformation of the hero is complete. 

            It is easy to think that a person is reading too far into a movie’s analysis when the someone searches for deep, profound meanings in objects, little details in a movie. Such as someone may say: ‘there’s no way that in Psycho, Hitchcock included a bunch of stuffed birds in Bates’ room to symbolize his relationships with woman as dead and unresponsive”   My argument is that symbolism is used all of the time in movies and more often than not, it is a conscious decision.  Now, a director isn’t necessarily implying exactly what people interpret.. these interpretations are subjective and people will develop their own conclusions.  What the director is doing is using an object as a device for showing the audience rather than telling.  Symbolism as a device is commonly used in three different ways: it can be a form of exposition, illuminate something about a character, and/or to show a transformation through the character’s interaction with that object.  PTA is extremely conscious of the symbols he uses and will in some cases will go to the extreme of using a symbol in the story regardless of the fact that it may interfere with the story’s believability. 

            The pudding is something that Barry has control over.  He is living in a place where everyone seems to misunderstand him and try to manipulate him…The movie is about a man who is grossly misunderstood.  Other people do not give him the time of day.  And try to manipulate him.  The pudding is something that he has seen that everyone else seems to have looked over.  This is something that he thinks he has control over… a finer detail. 

            After Barry finds out that the pudding will take six to eight weeks to process before he can get his frequent flying miles.  To this point it had been a symbol of something that Barry had gotten the better end of.  Now its not going to work.  He reacts by punching a map on the wall.  He screams in pain and grabs again for his harmonium, we see that the cuts on his bloodied knuckles spell out “Love”.  While I can argue that this lack of believability could pull the audience out of the story, it’s a powerful image that manages to encapsulate Barry’s story. 

            Phones ringing are used as a way to add tension in scenes.  Everyone knows that annoying feeling of a phone ringing in which you know you should answer but you don’t want to deal with whoever is on the end of the line.  Paul understands this feeling and used this phone ringing sound as a device to instill tension in the audience.  Barry is often a man who people overlook, and don’t take the time to understand him… he’s misunderstood.  In the climax, Barry rips the phone from the machine and takes it with him to confront them head on.  Face to face. He literally runs off while still holding the phone to his ear.  He brings the phone to the mattress shop and yells at him still holding the phone.  He is putting a face on a voice… forcing them to look at the fine print(referring to his comment about the putting earlier-everyone misses the fine print).. understand what they are doing. 

            The harmonium is relief. This is established as something he has taken on his own, something he is very intrigued by-  It is a source of comfort for the protagonist.  When the audience sees him reach out and grab the harmonium they realize that he is getting a sense of relief. 

            The deep blue suit that he wears is something other people judge him for.  Something that is used as a source of other people’s jokes, or judgemental questions.  We are never told when he got the suit, why he continues to wear it, but we know that he likes it… By addressing the suit multiple times in the movie it acts as a way to show the audience the character’s transformation.  He reacts differently to people’s comments as he transforms.

      The camera is used as narrator in this movie.  As you can already tell, the imagery in this movie is carefully used so as to evoke emotions within the audience.  But not only the objects within the frame are used but also the framing in itself.  The camera acts as a narrator, point the audience where to look, and to what is important.  This is typical of PTA, his shot selection is clearly thought out.  Each composition for a specific reason.  I believe that the effect of this camera narration is that it keeps the audence compelled and it tells the story through showing rather than telling.  It acts as a form of exposition, of which the audience must remain actively engaged to follow this story.  The following is an analysis of how PTA’s camerawork contributes to this story.

            A contrast between flat space and deep space is one tool that he uses to keep the story visually dynamic, this acts to keep the audience visually stimulated.  In terms of story structure, it keeps the story propelling forward and is a tool to hint at a certain feel in the scene.

            Deep space is scene frequently in the hallway way shots.  They are shot with a telephoto lens that actually shrinks the space but are long enough hallways that they look like have a dramatic look.  Some scenes in which we see Barry in hallways,  the hallways act as a way to build tension, for example the scene after Lena says “I wish you would have kissed me” barry runs from hallway to hallway, running at the camera and then running away from the camera, with the telephoto lens it looks like he’s not going anywhere.  This heightens the tension of the scene as the audience cannot wait to see the protagonist kiss the object of his desire.   Deep space is also used in the warehouse scenes.  These are some of the most stressful scenes that I’ve ever scene.  Paul builds the tension with music, and background dialogue, and reflections of people moving, phones ringing etc… this deep space adds to the visual intensity as Barry runs back and forth, answering phones pitching to his clients. 

            Flat space is used equally as well.  This occurs at the times when Barry is supposed to feel trapped.  One example is the scene where he brakes the three glass doors.  The tension builds as his sisters call him “gay boy” and pester him about everything imaginable.  The shot is composed of horizontal and vertical lines and there is very limited depth.  Barry has nowhere to go, on top of that he is standing in front of a glass cabinet full of nice china.  As the sound intensifies and Barry remains trapped in this space, the audience can sense that something is going to happen. 

            Another compositional method for showing that Barry is trapped is done by filming him from through a hallway so that the doorway reaches into both ends of the frame.  This gives the appearance of him having nowhere to go.  One of the most effective uses of this framing is when Georgia, calls him back the morning after he had called her for phone sex.  He answers the phone and it is framed as a medium shot.  The camera very slowly pushes in on Barry as Georgia hints at needing money.  As the camera pushes in Barry backs up at a faster rate, by the time the shot is done, it is a full shot of Barry, it is still framed by the doorframe and as the camera pushes in, the objects in the frame get considerably larger, especially those objects in the foreground.  The effect of this shot is that Barry not only looks trapped, but also he’s literally shrinking around the world of the story. The objects are getting larger and he is getting smaller.  The audience can sense that this is going to become a big problem. This visual effect is especially relevant because it occurs at the first turning point.  The room growing around him is a visual representation of him entering the ‘a new world’ which in terms of story structure, a protagonist is supposed to be entering a new world at the end of the first act. 

            The movie uses a lot of two shots where the characters are framed from the side.  The first time we see this type of framing, it is Barry sitting at his dinner table. It is framed in a way that you would expect there to be another person sitting at the table with him.  The audience already knows that Barry has nobody to talk to.  So by seeing him framed at a dinner table across from an empty chair the audience is directed to feel sympathetic for him.  PTA wants the audience to be feeling the character’s loneliness.  Now if this feels like to much of a stretch, then lets say that Barry was centered in the frame and Barry was sitting at the table with just the empty plate.  Now, maybe the audience could wonder if he’s hungry and thinking about what to eat, or if he’s just sitting down relaxing.  Furthermore, by instilling a sense of sympathy in the character the audience can now justify our protagonist calling a phone sex line, an act that would otherwise make our character unlikeable, and make it more difficult to relate to Barry.  When another two shot is used later in the story, Lena is sitting at the table with him.  Now this seat has been filled, and chances are the audience feels a sense of relief because of this filled void. 

            In Punch Drunk love, light is frequently used as a storytelling device.  Many of the shots are intentionally overexposed.  In this story the purpose of overexposed shots is to imply discomfort.  The first scene is a great example. Barry slowly peaks outside of his warehouse into an area that is so overexposed it is difficult to make out what is out there.  We see fear/hesitation in his face and he quickly steps back into his dark warehouse.  Throughout the movie shots are overexposed when Barry finds himself in new situations, where he doesn’t feel comfortable, or when he other people are impeding on his personal space.

            Lens flares are also used as a tool to imply discomfort.  This is another one of PTA’s bold stylistic decisions because a lens flare immediately draws attention to the fact that we are observing this story through a camera which risks pulling the audience out of the spell of the movie.  In my opinion they work because they are used sparingly and only at parts that are of high intensity for the protagonist, the audience is involved in the story enough that the lens flare complements the mood rather than acting as a distraction.

            Another use of light that draws attention to itself is when Barry calls Lena from the payphone.  This is the greatest moment for Barry, he is overcome with excitement to hear the sound of her voice.  As she says hello the light in the phone booth quickly brightens to a bright yellow glow on Barry’s face.  It’s as if he were literally glowing with excitement.  This is complemented by a loud cheer by the crowd behind him, its justified because all of the people are watching a parade but PTA intentionally included it because the cheering of a crowd subconsciously complements the moment with a positive, celebratory feel.

            Paul Thomas Anderson effectively tells a story about a man who must take arms against his own personal troubles.  Focusing on the psychological transformations within this man, Paul Thomas Anderson brings the audience on a psychological ride that literally makes one feel what the protagonist feels.  It is a testament to his highly acute understanding of film language that he manages to pull the viewer in rather than distract them with his highly formalistic direction.  Without such storytelling, it likely would have been just another Hollywood movie.  My hope is that in the future more directors will be willing to take risks and focus on visual/highly subconscious storytelling in order to carry an audience through the hero’s journey.