I want to put in a strong vote in favor of Punch Drunk Love as one of the most interesting movies of the year. I’m glad there are plenty of people out there who love Boogie Nights and Magnolia and have even gone back and watched Hard Eight, but I don’t think there’s any need to compare and find PDL wanting because somehow it doesn’t stack up to those, which are, after all, all pretty different from each other.

I’m old enough to remember seeing Antonioni’s L’Avventura when it first came out and I saw it with my father in NYC. Afterwards we both agreed it had made us feel very uncomfortable, but that we had loved it nonetheless. It won the big prize at Cannes for creating “a new cinematic language.” Punch Drunk Love challenges the viewer and what I remember most from it is how strange it seemed, not just Adam Sandler’s character, but the way the scenes moved, especially the minimalist sequence at the beginning. For me each successive sequence had an edge, and a freshness, and that’s what stays with me as pleasure, as the sense of experiencing a “new cinematic language.” P.T. Anderson is a real movie genius, kind of like what Orson Welles was when he made Citizen Kane. His movies may be highly allusive and this one is particularly quirky, but they have a visceral effect. If PDL leaves you feeling flat, maybe you were having a bad day. It’s harder to tune in to something that’s original and a good portion of the audience doesn’t usually “get” the great stuff when it first appears. Later it seems really nice to have been there for the experience.