Sandler shows his third alter ego

Rating: 8/10 (22 February 2012)

50 First Dates is Sandler experiencing with the romantic genre, while slightly tilting it towards the dramatic side, with an essence of comedy. It tells the heartwarming, if not mildly depressing tale of a Marine Biologist who falls in love with a woman who was in a car accident, and suffers from short term memory loss where her memory is wiped clean the next day.
She can still remember everything that happened the day before her accident, but she is unable to remember anything that happens in the present for more than a day. She is stuck living in what, she thinks, is October 13. The woman is Lucy, played by Drew Barrymore, and the Biologist is Henry, played by Adam Sandler. Despite her current state, Henry is head over heels in love with her, and desperately tries to make things work between them by constructing a scrapbook for her to read every morning, a tape to watch, and by having her father, Blake Clark, and brother, played by Sean Astin, who drops the funniest lines in the film, try to tell her everything about him again and again.
If a condition like this really existed, in the film it's a merge between short term memory loss and amnesia, the question is who would it be harder on? The person who has to suffer it, or the relatives who must deal with it. In the film, it shows the father and the son of Lucy going through the same daily phase of rearranging everything from repainting the wall they let Lucy paint to refilling the shampoo bottle. It just so happens that October 13 is her father's birthday, so they have to go the trouble of reliving it over and over again.
The story is charming, yet some of the comedic elements are a little out of place. The film has more characters than necessary, and tends to get focus more on them rather than furthering Sandler and Barrymore's wonderful chemistry. Adam Sandler's best friend is played by Rob Schneider, who is not funny at all in the film, and the "Alexa" character whose gender is never disclosed is an unnecessary and ridiculous distraction.
Also, the film seems a bit distended from the idea of this condition. Is this supposed to be cute and funny, or a serious and saddening? There are times when the film pokes fun at the illness (IE: "Ten Second Tom"), and there are times with Lucy where feels genuinely serious. It's almost like Sandler is saying, "yeah, it's sometimes sad, but c'mon, how do you not laugh at it?" With those quibbles being said, I can still say 50 First Dates is a great change of pace for Sandler. It's the second Sandler film I have really enjoyed, with the first being Funny People, and, at the rate we're going, will probably be his most sincere. If this is the best we'll get than so be it. I can live with that.
If I can compare old Sandler with new Sandler, it's easy to broadly state that his new films are humorless failures, but 50 First Dates is like the better version of one of his more recent comedies, Just Go With It. In Just Go With It, Sandler was playing a similar character; he preyed on young women just to get them in bed before abandoning them blind. Later on, he met a woman who he really did care for, pretended to be married, and still acted like a selfish, uninspired cad while putting on a nice guy face. Here, he is genuinely sincere, and not snarky and underwritten like his future character. We really go on to believe he cares about this young girl.
The ending is probably the saddest, yet most optimistic conclusion to any Sandler film yet. It appears to be happy, but when closely examined there's still a layer of sadness under it. Director Peter Segal, who directed the fun farce Tommy Boy (which is briefly referenced here), tightens his strings a bit to bring us a warm and simple drama with some characters we like and others we wish were shifted a bit out of focus. 50 First Dates isn't perfect, but it shows that Sandler is capable of doing a mostly serious role, and doesn't need to incorporate his two famous alter egos; the BIG, strong tough guy or the little, weak baby.
Starring: Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore, Rob Schneider, Blake Clark, and Sean Astin. Directed by: Peter Segal.