So I’ve loved Paul Thomas Anderson’s movies to one degree or another, and yet I’d never seen this one. I know why — it’s because Adam Sandler isn’t a comedian whose work I like, and I rolled my eyes at the whole “dumb comedian does a Serious Movie for the cred” trend when it was happening. (I still haven’t seen, and may never see, The Cable Guy.)

But… Sandler was pretty good in Uncut Gems as a sweaty, desperate gambler; and I really do love PTA movies. Plus Criterion released this on a 4K disc, so okay, sure, let’s go.

Unfortunately, it’s kinda what I thought it was, in the derogatory sense. Adam Sandler plays an awkward loser with no self-control. He gets himself into a series of bad situations, starting with getting scammed by a crooked phone sex line (run by a family that seems like it was lifted from a Coen Brothers movie). But the core of the movie is that he gets into a relationship with a woman who sees… something????… in him, and that relationship kindasorta makes him into a better person, I guess.

It’s a deeply unconvincing relationship, because his character is just a collection of red flags and no sane woman would go anywhere near him; and the movie never even tries to explain why she would be attracted to him. It’s just purely that he’s the protagonist and she’s the love interest, go.

It’s not a bad movie. It’s never dull, there are moments that are great (Philip Seymour Hoffman as the furniture store/phone sex boss has a typically standout performance), and it’s well made. It’s just that the core of the movie doesn’t work, because Sandler’s character is so deeply broken as a person.

That said, Ebert had a contemporaneous review of the movie where he frames it up as a piece of film criticism of Adam Sandler movies, taking that kind of ingratiating loser Sandler character and exposing the violent rage underlying his “comedic” actions. Okay, I can buy that; seeing this movie as a kind of response to all those dumbass comedies makes a lot more sense out of it. But since I never saw/liked those movies in any way, a response to those also doesn’t hold any inherent interest to me. So maybe this is just a successful movie doing a thing I don’t care about, rather than an unsuccessful one failing at a thing I do; either way, it’s only okay.