Adam Sandler: Love You (Netflix, Josh Safdie, 2024)
Adam Sandler’s new comedy special is now on Netflix. If Sandler says ‘Love You’ will you love him back?
I’ve never been the world’s biggest Adam Sandler fan but his funniest movies - from The Wedding Singer to last year’s animated romp Leo - always made me wish I could love him more.
‘Love you’ is the kind of phrase that you when something or someone frustrates you but you don’t want to get in an argument with them.
But I guess it works both ways. The life of a comedian, even if or perhaps especially when they are as successful as Sandler, can be quite frustrating too.
At the beginning of the special, directed by Josh Safdie (Uncut Gems), he arrives with coffee spilled on his shirt, in a car with a damaged front window.
Outside the venue he is hassled by fans and once inside the theater there are more people who want something from him: he has to sign shirts for people with MS and talk to a young man (via Face Time) who is in hospital after a bad accident.
First world problems, no doubt, but Sandler just wants to go out on stage and be funny. And so he does, taking a new coffee with him. (but it’s got Splenda in it instead of Stevia, so another one is brought out to him!)
But on stage the problems continue, with monitors not working and a keyboard falling down a black hole and some other shit too.
Sure, it feels like it’s all scripted - the comedy special was written by Dan Bulla and Sandler himself - but it feels real all the same.
Still, when Sandler starts telling his jokes the for a while the show becomes more hit and miss. He also takes out a guitar and starts singing some half assed songs.
It’s the part of the show where I can’t help feeling Sandler and Safdie strung together some of the more chaotic moments to create some absurdist comedy that’s not for everyone.
But then the show settles into a groove and starts to feel more coherent. More jokes begin to land, including a great sequence with a genie that ends with a joke about a hand job and Ben Stiller - it’s definitely R-rated!
The songs also get funnier, including a funky one about a guy with a backpack at the movies. ‘He’s sitting between me and the exit,’ he sings. ‘He takes out some shit, fortunately it’s Twizzers.’
Love You was filmed at the Nocturne Theatre in Glendale in California. It’s an intimate venue that can hold about 75 people and, apparently, to make it more lived in Safdie and his crew added carpeting and spilled a two liter bottle of Coke on the floor.
The result is a mixture of six different performances and was cut from three hours to seventy-four minutes.
Even after all these years in the business, Sandler is still the ultimate guy-next-door, who’s always in for a laugh, sometimes annoyingly so, but also with an unexpectedly sweet, even sentimental side.
Yes, there’s something genuinely loopy about him, but all the same he’s still that regular guy you can imagine sitting in a bar telling all kinds of stories to whoever will listen.
I’m not sure Sandler’s stage comedy will ever be completely for me, but I’m glad I gave this show a shot.
Love you, Sandman!