How 'The Wedding Singer' Changed Adam Sandlers Career

Publish date: 2024-09-19

The Big Picture

It may not rise quit to the level of the frenetic brilliance of Benny and Josh Safdie's 2019 crime thriller Uncut Gems, nor can it equal the quirky madness of Punch-Drunk Love, but The Wedding Singer is nonetheless a top tier Adam Sandler movie. This is especially remarkable considering the film is firmly within Sandler’s post-SNL goofy comedy phase before he began venturing out to work with more idiosyncratic filmmakers such as the Safdies, Paul Thomas Anderson for Punch-Drunk Love, and Noah Baumbach with The Meyerowitz Stories. Although audiences would not see this more artistic-minded side of Sandler for a few more years after The Wedding Singer’s release in 1998, it was this film that signaled a shift in the young comedian’s career and foretold that more interesting material was on the horizon.

The Wedding Singer
PG-13ComedyRomance


Robbie, a singer, and Julia, a waitress, are both engaged, but to the wrong people. Fortune intervenes to help them discover each other.

Release Date February 13, 1998 Director Frank Coraci Cast Adam Sandler , Drew Barrymore , Christine Taylor , Allen Covert , Matthew Glave , Ellen Albertini Dow Runtime 95 Studio New Line Cinema Writers Tim Herlihy Tagline He's gonna party like it's 1985! Expand

'The Wedding Singer' Is Proof That Adam Sandler Can Carry a Drama

The Wedding Singer was our first glimpse of Adam Sandler’s ability to convincingly handle dramatic material. The film overall is still relatively lighthearted and fun, but until The Wedding Singer, Sandler gravitated towards stories with absurd premises, such as a hockey-player-turned-golfer in Happy Gilmore or an adult attending grade school in Billy Madison, or a waterboy-turned-football-star in The Waterboy. By contrast, The Wedding Singer at its core is a film that deals with relatable, real-world themes such as heartbreak, depression, and romantic love. Sandler plays a thoroughly depressed character throughout the bulk of the film, an obvious departure from his goofier, rage-filled characters prior.

After The Wedding Singer, Sandler began quickly shifting towards exploring more dramatic material. Big Daddy deals with themes of maturity and fatherhood, while Punch-Drunk Love marked the beginning of his journey into artsy, independent film. As we take a look at a few key dramatic moments in The Wedding Singer, we’ll see how this revered Sandler classic signaled the beginning of a new phase in his long, illustrious career.

Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore Have Great Chemistry in 'The Wedding Singer'

Sandler’s chemistry with Drew Barrymore in The Wedding Singer is off the charts, and it’s no surprise that the duo would collaborate again in 50 First Dates and Blended. His first scene with Barrymore comes after he’s delivered a stirring performance at a wedding ceremony and aids a young kid who drank too much and is now suffering the consequences. Both Sandler as Robbie and Barrymore as Julia exude cute, wholesome energy which is why they make such a great pair. But Sandler in this scene has an interesting task. Robbie is already engaged to someone else he ostensibly loves, so Sandler must in this scene convey some level of attraction to Barrymore’s character without displaying any hint that he’s overly flirtatious or inappropriate. Again, his and Barrymore’s signature wholesomeness is useful here, as it’s impossible to imagine either of these characters betraying their paramours. Sandler delivers his lines with a sparkle in his eyes that quickly vanishes when his demeanor turns formal, and he gets back to work. It’s the perfect blend of attracted but not too attracted, friendly but not flirtatious. If this scene struck a wrong note, it would hinder the audience’s enthusiasm for Robbie and Julia to unite. But Sandler nails it.

Adam Sandler's Singing in 'The Wedding Singer' Is Both Moving and Hilarious

In a scene about halfway through The Wedding Singer, Robbie performs an original song he’s written for Julia entitled “Somebody Kill Me Please.” He begins crying during the song as he wails about his heartbreak and depression. It’s a moment in which we’re expected to be simultaneously laughing at the mercurial nature of the song while also feeling Robbie's despondency. Remove the comedic element from the equation, and it’s just a scene of Robbie being moved to tears by a song. This scene makes great use of Sandler’s explosive rage, which is typically utilized to comedic effect but also sometimes for dramatic purposes, such as in Punch Drunk-Love, when Sandler’s character feels overwhelmed by the pressures building up in his life and then snaps in a bout of fury and sadness. You can also see shades here of Sandler’s future performance in 2007’s Reign Over Me, in which he plays a man who lost his family on September 11th. His character’s grief in that film sometimes emerges in sudden bouts of emotion, similar to this scene in The Wedding Singer.

'The Wedding Singer's Emotional Bar Scene Shows Adam Sandler's Range

Sandler’s simmering anger is one of his best qualities as an actor and one that writers and directors have been exploiting for decades. His characters frequently have a genuine wholesomeness that is threatened by the cruel realities of life, which makes them boil with anger until finally exploding in a bout of rage. In one particular scene in The Wedding Singer where Robbie shares a heart-to-heart with his best friend Sammy (Allen Covert), Sandler never goes over the top, instead playing it straight as a moment in which his character has become nihilistic and given up on finding happiness.

After a few shots at a bar, he talks to Sammy, who chases after women (or at least pretends to). Sammy confides in Robbie that treating women as disposable has made him miserable, making Robbie realize that his cynicism is a dead end. The scene has a few comedic moments when an elderly man on the other side of the bar interjects with some one-liners but on the whole, it’s a dramatic scene. In this pivotal scene in The Wedding Singer, Sandler demonstrates an interesting ability: he speaks at a decibel that we can just barely hear, making us realize when he’s being heartfelt. Of course, for comedic scenes this soft demeanor becomes more effective when contrasted with his outbursts. But for dramatic purposes, he uses this skill to draw in the audience and establish a feeling of intimacy.

'The Wedding Singer' Paved the Way for Sandler's Future Roles

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Of course, Sandler is not quite at an Academy Award level performance in The Wedding Singer, but that’s to be expected. The Wedding Singer is not a drama, it’s a comedy, and Sandler is funny in it. But by pursuing material that allows for more genuine moments and puts him inside a character who feels real, we as an audience are being introduced to the idea that Sandler can do more than just make us laugh. It’s hard to watch Sandler's comedic performances in Billy Madison or Happy Gilmore or The Waterboy and see shades of the Sandler we see in Punch-Drunk Love, Uncut Gems, or Hustle. But we can see the foundation of those performances in The Wedding Singer, which gives the film a special place in the actor’s filmography. And on top of that, it’s just a great, fun, and heartwarming film.

The Wedding Singer is available to stream on Hulu in the U.S.

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