The most important things a comedy special can have are a strong opener and a great closer. That's often why Dave Chappelle's specials are so great — they have mastered the art of openings and closings. People can tolerate the drift between (or midrift, if you will), but the things they'll surely remember are the beginning and the ending. Adam Sandler's surprising new comedy special (with an even more surprising director) not only has the most unique and riveting intros and conclusions of any comedy special in years, it also maintains a delightful, rapid, and unexpected pace of jokes throughout. It's the best comedy special I've seen since Bo Burnham's Inside.
Like Inside, Adam Sandler: Love You is a largely musical endeavor, much more musical than you'd expect. And the good news is, Sandler's talents have vastly improved since he began decades ago. He is excellent at acoustic, electric, and bass guitar, and has a mean whistle as well. His accompanist does a great job with the keyboard and production in general. If musical comedy isn't your thing, you may want to skip this special, but it also could be the perfect gateway to the subgenre — the songs are not only funny and catchy, but quick and wildly varied in genre and tone, so that you never get stuck in one style for long. It all leads to a truly unexpected, tear-jerking musical finale that transcends heights Sandler has never even approached in stand-up before.
Unexpected Tension Builds to Adam Sandler's Very Special Special
The director of Adam Sandler: Love You is Josh Safdie, one of the Safdie brothers who directed him in the critical darling, Uncut Gems. Leave it to Sandler and Safdie to bring unbelievable tension and anxiety into a comedy special right away. In an outstanding beginning, Sandler arrives to the theater in a car with a broken windshield, coffee spilled all over him. There's chaos outside and inside, and he's late. We follow him as he's approached for every sort of thing, changes clothing with a kind muscular man, tries to sign jerseys, and is approached by a young boy to sign his autograph on intimate photos of Sandler in his own home.
Right before going on stage, a security guard holds up her phone to him and begs him to talk to her son, who had just been in a horrible accident. They're calling Sandler on stage, but there on the phone is a man in a hospital bed, wearing a skimpy gown, blood covering his face while he smiles and talks at a motormouth pace, ecstatic to see Sandler. The comedian's handed his coffee, and they put the wrong sweetener in it. He comes on stage, and the venue's monitors, essential for his performance, are broken. It's unnerving, uncomfortable, and an exhilarating build-up to his set that gives a mission statement of sorts — can comedy overcome stress?
It's hard to tell just how much of Adam Sandler: Love You is real. Was the coffee order wrong on purpose? Did they plan for the monitors to not work? When the leg of the piano falls through a hole on the stage, or when people in the audience almost have a fistfight, or when a dog runs out from backstage — is this all the machinations of Josh Safdie, trying his best to f*ck with Sandler and keep him on his toes? Or is the day-to-day life of a famous comedian this chaotic and surreal? That's part of the Andy Kaufman-esque magic of this special. You don't know where the line is.
Great Music and a Perfect Ending Proves the Power of Comedy
Then there's the comedy itself. It's a wonderful mix of extremely simple jokes based around good storytelling and basic misdirection. These story-based jokes have a fun blend of sweet silliness and gross adult humor, the kind of jokes that incorporate magical genies and talking balloons alongside masturbation, adultery, death, and poop. These are interspersed with some genuine (and soul-crushing) bits about depression, marriage, children, and the sad little miseries of life in general.
The music, as mentioned, is pleasantly loose (with Sandler himself laughing occasionally while singing) despite the two very talented musicians on stage. Depending on the mood and lyrics of the song, Sandler will do some funk on the bass, a skillful pasodoble on acoustic guitar, a whimsical whistling two-step, and so on. Sandler even steps into the background for one bit, playing some excellent electric guitar while surprise guest Rob Schneider does an incredible rendition of Elvis' "It's Now or Never." Whatever opinion you have of Schneider, this is a downright astounding performance and a beautiful moment of onstage camaraderie.
This all leads to the show's ending, a stunning original song that's best left unspoiled. Suffice it to say, it moved me to tears and will be replayed countless times in my household. It's a moment of pure, sublime passion, a tribute to comedy itself. When Sandler leaves the theater, his windshield is fixed. Through sadness, through chaos, through all the miserable sh*t, comedy can fix the broken. It's a perfect ending to a perfect special.
Watch on Netflix
Comments
Post a Comment