For his fourth film, Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood, Boogie Nights, the forthcoming One Battle After Another) did the impossible. He got Adam Sandler, the star of knucklehead comedies like Happy Gilmore and The Waterboy, to pull off a dramatic, even a romantic role. In this sweet if odd romantic comedy, Sandler plays socially awkward Barry Egan, who falls for one of his domineering sisters’ friends. Barry endangers their burgeoning romance when, out of loneliness, he calls a phone sex line and sets a whole world of hurt in motion. The movie bombed but critics and filmmakers loved it and Anderson’s instincts about Sandler’s range proved accurate. It helps to have such a solid cast around him, including Emily Watson as his soul mate, Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the deliciously greedy and the ever versatile Luis Guzman as Barry’s befuddled coworker. — Doug Pullen
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