Tuesday 24 October 2017

#291 Is Adam Sandler making a comeback?

When critics and many members of the public started asking "What happened to Adam Sandler?", you could see where they were coming from. It certainly wasn't because of his lack of appearances. The comedian had churned out two films a year for almost twenty of 'em. Yet, Sandler's insistence of on creating film after film, starring pretty much the same cast never did him any favours when it came to his reviews.

I think the last really memorable Sandler film I saw was Click back in 2006. It had everything. A relevant theme, a couple of adorable kids and Christopher Walken. Since then though I couldn't tell you half the titles of the films he's made.

The gap between Sandler's audience and his ratings got bigger and must have set some kind of record in 2015. December that year saw the release of the Ridiculous Six, which got seen more times in a month than any other film since Netflix had started, hitting the number one spot in every one of their countries. Meanwhile, Rotten Tomatoes gave it a rating of 0%.

Most actors take a break once in a while. Not this guy. Undeterred by what the critics thought of him, he continued to get right up in our faces, all of the time until recently something happened. He received a decent review.

The Meyerowitz Stories, which was released on 13 October this year received 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. This was in no small part due to the excellent performances of its actors, among whom Sandler received notable mention. I found the film easy to watch because of its comfortable pace and would agree with most reviewers, who wrote that Sandler, while remaining a goofball, was able to portray some good emotional complexity.

In what would have been one of the more serious moments of most films, a speech made by Sandler and Stiller drew the best out of both of them while retaining some notes of humor in a way that might have been difficult for some other actors to replicate. I saw the film in its entirety as something like a cross between Dan In Real Life and The Royal Tenenbaums, which also starred Ben Stiller.

It might be too early to tell whether Sandler will abandon his relentless stream of nausea-inducing but incredibly popular films and start thinking more carefully about what journalists are saying about him but I personally hope he does exactly that. He's more than capable.

5 comments

Fizzfan said...

If I’m reading this right, Adam Sandler makes movies that the public like but the critics don’t sometimes?

He’s not my usual cuppa tea, because he doesn’t star in my usual sort of movies, but I can’t help asking, is he just smart about making himself a lot of money while the goings good?
As long as he doesn’t start doing after shave ads (unless he’s taking the P of course) I don’t really mind.

Profound Familiarity said...

Yes, you're reading it right.

Yes, he is smart about making money. He started his own production company and him and his buddies get a good chunk of the proceeds from the films they make and star in.

Fizzfan said...

Probably laughs at the critics then.
I think that’s a good approach to life:))

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