By all means watch it again. The fact that you didn't get the phone sex thing indicates you really weren't thinking about what was going on as the whole film is really about this sad fellow's inability to make a connection. He got dogged by his overbearing sisters throughout childhood, then managed to make a business for himself, but all the while unable to reach out and find himself as a whole, the prerequisite for finding someone else in any meaningful way.Michael wrote:That's it. Thanks once again, jorencain. I was probably not in a good mood when I first watched PDL.
And then this is the sad albeit comedic aspect of this masterpiece: it's a shitty world we live in and this guy who is both "pure" and extremely wound in a violent disposition gets shit on when he makes any attempt to reach out. Those who could help either stand back wary of his plea, or utterly screw him over. In the end he finds himself and through Lena's quirky risk-taking and "makes a call" for justice.
I didn't see this film until it came out on DVD and I borrowed it from a colleague. I was warned away from the reviews (again). When I saw it on DVD I gushed about it so much my colleague told me to keep the fucking DVD as he couldn't make heads or tails of it. When the disc ended the most articulate response from the three people I saw it with (including my wife) was "huh". I know it's kind of a cop-out to claim "either it hits you or it doesn't" but I believe this is definitely one of those films. I'm glad it hit me because it's one of the few films that really reaches into my soul and....ok ok....enough already.
And Adam Sandler. Granted, I'm a big PTA fan (except for Hard 8 or whatever he wants to call it) but when I heard he had Adam Sandler lined up for his next film I thought he was sucking up to the big studios to help finance his next 'real' project. I don't care much for Adam, definitely don't like his movies, but he was spot on in this IMO.