When I first saw it, I was certain that Punch-Drunk Love was destined for cult classic status, but so far, whenever I drop a line like "just say that's that, mattress man" into conversation, all I get are blank stares in return.

It was probably during the title sequence that doesn't feature a title that I first realized this movie was much more than just a distraction; it's an aesthetic "experience," to lift Jimi Hendrix's term. Among the film's joyous eccentricities is that it stars Adam Sandler in what is primarily a character study, something unthinkable based on the actor's work previous to this film. Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson, who also directed something like a million brilliant performances in Boogie Nights and Magnolia, is clearly a peerless acting coach.

Sandler plays Barry Egan, an introverted loser who sells toilet accessories out of a warehouse and avoids social contact like regrettable get-togethers with his seven patronizing sisters. Then one day he finds a harmonium (piano-like device) in the street and meets a nice girl named Lena and discovers a loophole in an American Airlines/Healthy Choice promotion that can score him a lifetime supply of frequent flyer miles if he buys a lot of pudding. Later that night, out of loneliness, he calls a phone-sex hotline, which turns out to be a front for a mattress magnate, who specializes in harassing and extorting innocent customers like Barry. Anderson veteran Philip Seymour Hoffman skillfully portrays this character as the kind of jerk I've seen plenty of in life, but rarely so memorably in film. Sisters, harmonium, pudding, Lena, phone-sex hotline. These five seemingly incongruous, un-dramatic elements end up, amazingly, comprising the entire plot. One ought not take this plot on face value. It's the governing structure behind the film that is of crucial importance. Everything in the movie is slightly out of key, just like the harmonium Barry perpetually tries to master. Thus, musical flourishes often arrive at the wrong moment and not all of the plot strands build towards the kind of resolution we are accustomed to seeing in movies.

The reason behind this, as I see it, is that PDL is Anderson's critique of Hollywood movies and more pointedly of the Hollywoodization of our psychological lives. Barry romanticizes his life in the most seemingly mundane circumstances. I can relate to that psychological experience as I'm sure many can. Haven't you ever been worked up about something that, when you look back at it, seems trivial?

Barry does this to an exaggerated degree, because he's sort of out-of-key himself, suffering from depression or something like it. Because of this, Barry goes through his life as if it were a romantic comedy or, at other times, a suspense thriller. The problem is that in reality he's still a human being and the life he's actually living doesn't resemble a movie, hence the asynchrony of his (our) vision.

This analysis doesn't incorporate all of the fine intricacies of the movie, however, nor does it even scratch the surface of the film's aesthetic homeruns of music, framing, and lighting. You will marvel at the many surprises it has to offer on each of these levels on each and every viewing. Out of the new class of important American directors that also includes (unrelated) Wes Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, and a handful of others, I consider "P.T." the strongest. By virtue of his artistic, thoroughly independent voice and the blissful vivacity his films retain after multiple viewings, it would only be slightly presumptuous to call him the Stanley Kubrick of our generation. Only time will tell, but his accomplishments thus far merit him at least as large a following as Wes and Q.T. have so far accumulated.