Wired Mesh

The Battle for Sandler’s Soul

In this week's issue of the Pulse, you can read my reviews of The Passion of the Christ, 21 Grams and Club Dread. (I didn't really like any of them.) And here, it's finally time to reveal Josiah and my 50 First Dates debate, in which Josiah gets so annoyed at my desire to deconstruct Adam Sandler that he calls me a "hipster-cynic." Whatever that is.

Speaking of Josiah and me... in the last half-hour we've managed to utterly hijack the debate about supposed racism on the Drone blog. ("You know what I miss most about Covenant? The love, man. The love.")

50 First Dates is divided between the charming and the crass

By Josiah Roe and Aaron Mesh
Published in the February 18-24 issue of the Pulse

Josiah: It was hard for me not to like 50 First Dates, the latest Adam Sandler flick directed by Peter Segal, co-starring Drew Barrymore, who partnered with Sandler in The Wedding Singer. Its central premise of a man (Sandler) falling in love with a woman (Barrymore) who each night forgets everything that had occurred that day, seems as an odd place to find real emotion and sentiment, especially given other films (especially Memento) that have used such plot maneuvers. But the film, despite being nearly hamstrung by unnecessary bathroom humor, somehow pulls off earnest emotions with honest sentiments of love and sacrifice.

Aaron: The crude humor of 50 First Dates isn't surprising: Sandler's most recent effort, Anger Management, was a painfully off-putting exercise in penis-size jokes. So no one should be shocked that Dates contains a walrus projectile vomiting onto a veterinarian whose indeterminate gender is a running gag. The surprise is that there's another, better movie battling the vulgarity for the soul of Sandler.

Memory loss isn't just an easy joke in Dates; instead, Segal gently examines his high concept that Barrymore, injured in a car crash nearly a year ago, wakes up every morning thinking it's still the day before her injury. Her father (Blake Clark, ably channeling John Mahoney) and her brother (Sean Astin, taking it easy as a lisping bodybuilder after carrying Elijah Woods up all those Middle Earth mountains) spend every day nurturing Barrymore’s illusions. The two men spend every day watching the same movie (The Sixth Sense, the ending of which never ceases to surprise Barrymore) and every night washing clothes and re-wrapping birthday gifts to maintain the ruse of continuity. It’s a wonder they find time for jobs. When Sandler arrives on the scene, falling for Barrymore at first sight of her building a log cabin out of her diner waffles, he first tries to win her, day after day. But he soon sets to a greater, and more moving task: trying to maintain a relationship with someone who can’t remember who you are.

Josiah: I may be stretching a great deal at this point, but here's where I think the film moves a bit deeper than simply Sandler goofily making Barrymore fall in love with him, over and over and over again. I think the movie touches on the idea of "the good guy," who each day fights and sacrifices for the woman he loves. While the situation in 50 First Dates is comically extreme, is occasionally the case (hard as it is to believe) that there are good guys out there who have to earn their respective others love each and every day. This is of course a good thing.

But now I've moved way beyond discussing the film and into moralizing about relationships. I apologize. It really is a shame, though, that a film with subtle comedic elements between Sandler, Barrymore and their supporting cast (especially Sean Astin as Barrymore's brother), should be overshadowed by pointless, irrelevant, and often painfully unfunny crass jokes. Remove those moments and flesh out the scenes btween Barrymore and Sandler, and you have all the working of a near pitch-perfect romantic comedy. Call it Roman Holiday Lite.

Aaron: Don’t apologize for bringing up the relational undercurrents of the movie. They’re the best part of the film. Still, there’s something a little odd about the entire enterprise here: the film drifts dangerously close to a sort of solipsism a little past its midway point, as Sandler continues to have one successful “first kiss” after another. Isn’t there something self-gratifying, even borderline misogynistic, about having an affair with a woman who can’t completely experience it? Doesn’t that make her a bit of a prop in your personal-growth drama? (Barrymore deserves enormous credit for keeping these thoughts at bay for much of the film, bringing lovely life to character that can never emotionally develop.)

The film’s charming third act manages to sweep most of these concerns away with a clever denouement, but I think the dilemma serves as a nice metaphor for Sandler’s own cinematic career. Too often his films have used his co-stars and romantic companions as window dressing for Sandler’s boorish riffs. In 50 First Dates, he seems to be taking small steps to acknowledge the humanity of the other characters, except perhaps Rob Schneider. But I’m not quite ready to concede Schneider’s humanity myself.

Josiah: Boy Mesh, that was probably the most hipster-cynical two paragraphs of film review that I've seen you put together in a long time. Me, I'll choose to believe in the sincerity of Sandler's love for Barrymore. Sure, his character certainly grew because of his sacrificial love, but faulting somebody for not being purely altruistic is a bit extreme.

I like seeing Sandler, and Barrymore for that matter, in these types of roles. Few would disagree with the claim that Punch-Drunk Love was a perfect fit for Sandler. I'd like to see Sandler stay doing movies like it and 50 First Dates. I just don't know of anyone who can pull of over-the-top comedic emotional pain like he does. If he sticks with it, I'll stick with him.

Josiah Roe and Aaron Mesh are two St. Elmoites who often stand outside the Bijou arguing about movies. They’re sort of like Ebert and Roeper, only without viable career prospects or functioning thumbs. Look for their film discussions each Wednesday in the Pulse.

Posted by mesh at March 5, 2004 12:32 PM | TrackBack