SMART DIRECTOR, DUMB STAR YIELD 'PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

IT WOULD BE glib but satisfying to be able to say that either Adam Sandler or Paul Thomas Anderson wins ``Punch-Drunk Love'' by TKO. But this odd little pairing of the slob comic superstar and the auteur of Valley angst is pretty much a draw.

Sandler's inarticulate rage is given a human dimension, and Anderson's inquiring artistry doesn't probe too far past the funny business.

At its best, the film proves that irrepressibly smart Anderson and insistently dumb Sandler were a good match from the start. Whatever head- scratching the project initially inspired did not take into account Anderson's proven ability to draw affecting performances out of questionable talents (see Burt Reynolds and Mark Wahlberg in ``Boogie Nights'') and make compelling watchability out of seething anger (Tom Cruise in ``Magnolia'').

Sandler's bad-boy act has been literally screaming for a real director to do something interesting with it for ... well, for the once-charming ``Saturday Night Live'' regular's entire movie career. Maybe there's only so much that can be done.

``Punch-Drunk's'' dweebish, hair-trigger Barry Egan is far and away the most complex characterization Sandler has ever attempted. But in the universe of memorable Anderson creations, Barry is no Dirk Diggler, just a phone sex customer.

That's a subplot, by the way, and a funny one (but not for as long as it wears on). What Barry really is is a salesman of novelty bathroom plungers and such who works out of a cavernous strip garage space at the north end of the San Fernando Valley. He has seven annoying sisters, no girlfriend (ever, apparently), a nondescript apartment and a great scheme to earn millions of frequent-flier miles via a glitch in a pudding cross-promotion program.

No wonder the mealy-mouthed, always blue-suited Barry regularly takes to smashing sliding doors and busting up restaurant washrooms. Into this pathetic, repressed life comes hope in the form of Lena Leonard (Emily Watson). One of the sisters' co-workers, she's interested in Barry and has a little but not too much trouble getting him interested in her. He ultimately chases her to Hawaii, where she does not play hard to get.

Things are finally looking up, except for those blackmailing phone-sex operators.

That's about it storywise. It is a bit unnerving to note that Barry enjoys about 10 times as much character development as the second largest role, Lena, can claim (Watson being a wonderful actress, she makes it work anyway).

But this seems to be very much a part of Anderson's plan. Almost everything about the movie points toward an inquiry as to whether love can bloom amid parched alienation.

Barry's life, from his business to his disastrous attempt to talk to a woman to his traveling dreams, is based on some sales pitch or another that turns out to be empty or stupid or frustrating. There really is no reason why he should have believed in love before Lena came along. Except, of course, that he needed to.

``Punch-Drunk'' is not nearly as cinematic as ``Boogie Nights'' nor as symphonic as ``Magnolia.'' It's about half the length of those masterpieces.

It does, however, pack enough visual and sonic flourishes to indicate that the filmmaker is as restlessly inventive as ever. Jeremy Blake's abstract color pulses evoke the rich inner life Barry wishes he had at regular intervals. Frequent Anderson collaborator Jon Brion's score often mutates beyond music into the sounds of jangled nerves amplified beyond their mortal confines.

As always, Anderson comes up with telling and inscrutable images, from an inexplicably abandoned harmonium to the mazelike hallways of fire- door-divided apartment complexes that make finding what you want a tedious game.

Like ``Punch-Drunk Love'' as a whole, they add up to some kind of statement about the way we live now. If so much of the movie wasn't just Adam Sandler doing what he does, maybe we'd come away with a deeper understanding of what all was meant.

PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE - Three stars

(R: language, violence)

Starring: Adam Sandler, Emily Watson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Luis Guzman, Mary Lynn Rajskub.

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson.

Running time: 1 hr. 37 min.

Playing: Grove, Farmer's Market; Criterion, Santa Monica.

In a nutshell: Experiments with sound, color and a lead actor who's no Marky Mark make this trifling romantic comedy from the formidable director of ``Boogie Nights'' and ``Magnolia'' an intriguing minor work.