Adam Sandler has a new comedy special on Netflix available now. It’s called “Love You,” and it comes six years after the Sandman made quite an incredible comeback to the comedy special scene with his spectacular “100% Fresh,” which featured new stand-up bits, goofy songs, and one hell of a lovely tribute to the late, great Chris Farley. Does Sandler still have the goods? The answer is yes, even if the special comes to a screeching halt thanks to a certain buddy of his (you can find out more in my full review over here). But this special comes with a little something extra, courtesy of a gifted filmmaker behind the scenes as director this time.
“Love You” is directed by Josh Safdie, one half of the Safdie brothers filmmaking duo (the other being Benny Safdie, co-star of “Oppenheimer”) that gave us the endlessly intense and anxiety-inducing drama “Uncut Gems,” featuring a banger of a performance from Adam Sandler himself. The special features a little bit of that signature Safdie chaos in the opening sequence before the show begins. Beyond that, the show’s venue was manufactured by Safdie and Sandler to not only appear as a sketchy place for a comedy show, but for several planned mishaps to unfold, creating a bit of a strange vibe for the audience.
Yes, as confirmed by Vulture (who attended the premiere of “Love You” at New York’s Paris Theater), Safdie and producer Ronald Bronstein executed a plan to reconfigure the Nocturne Theatre in Glendale, California into a venue where “Safdie and production designer Sam Lisenco basically trashed the place, adding carpeting and upending a two-liter bottle of Coke to give the whole place an off-putting odor (and presumably sticky floors).” As Safdie explained:
“We wanted to make it look like it’d been there for 60 years. It had a real vibe. John Turturro said it was like hanging out in his friend’s basement and laughing at his funniest friend.”
That vibe also included planning several mishaps that both Sandler and the audience would have to navigate on the spot. Sandler knew odd things were going to happen, but he wasn’t sure exactly what those things were. In fact, there’s one altercation that pops up around 10 minutes into the special that wasn’t actually part of Safdie’s plan at all.
Manufactured chaos during Adam Sandler’s Love You special
The chief problem that pops almost as soon as the show begins on stage is that the trio of monitors situated above Sandler’s head at the venue aren’t functioning right. We see the blue sky and rolling green hills of a Windows computer background, and then the computer totally fails, and the monitors are useless for most of the show. Sandler even comments on how the audience would have seen a shot of the Sunmaid Raisins woman for one of the bits he does on stage, but alas, the monitors “weren’t working.”
Not long after, before one of the musical bits begins, Dan Bulla (a “Saturday Night Live” writer who has collaborated with Sandler on various movies, as well as “100% Fresh”) suddenly finds his keyboard stand sunk into a gap on the stage, creating a slight delay for the show. Much later in the show, a dog comes marching through the stage and into the audience, where some embrace the canine like a good boy/girl.
It’s interesting, because for the audience at the show and for anyone unaware watching at home, all of this really does make the show feel more genuine and unpredictable. Safdie truly succeeded in making the venue feel just a little off-kilter. But there was one moment that he didn’t manufacture himself.
About 10 minutes into the special, you can hear some bickering in the audience, and Sandler addresses it directly to find out what’s going on and squash the drama before things get out of hand. Safdie said at the premiere, “[Sandler] didn’t know these things were coming, but when the fight happened, part of him was probably thinking, ‘Was Josh behind this?'” But Sandler could tell this wasn’t faked. He explained, “No, it felt like real energy. I was f**king scared for everyone.”
We’re glad that the faked mishaps (and the real one) didn’t take anything away from Sandler’s latest comedy special. It would have been a bummer if they were too distracting for the special to gain any momentum, but it was just enough to make things interesting. And for what it’s worth, the monitors eventually start working just in time for Sandler’s wonderful tribute to the art of comedy.
“Adam Sander: Love You” is streaming on Netflix now.