The actor Roger Ebert always wanted to like but never did: “It would give me enormous satisfaction”
Some folks are willing to admit it more than others, but most discerning cinema fans have at least one actor they cannot fucking stand under any circumstances. Roger Ebert had a few, but in one instance, it seemed like he was trying his hardest to find a soft spot for them somewhere.
Unfortunately, when the performer in question almost exclusively made atrocious movies that the esteemed critic would savage in his reviews, the task of giving them a passing grade became increasingly insurmountable. There was an anomaly, right enough, but it was much more of an exception than a rule.
Rob Schneider became a frequent source of Ebert’s ire, which he fully deserved, because he doesn’t make anything that isn’t crap. The two feuded for a while, but they eventually made amends before the latter’s death. Why did Schneider even have a film career in the first place? Well, it had less to do with his Saturday Night Live stint and a great deal more to do with his friendship with Adam Sandler.
He might have been a three-time Primetime Emmy nominee for SNL, but in the majority of cases, anyone who makes a string of shit films will find themselves out of work pretty quickly. Not Schneider, though, who’s arguably benefited the most from being a key member of Sandler’s inner circle. As for the ‘Sandman’ himself? Ebert had a sneaking suspicion there was a talent in there somewhere.
The drawback was that the actor and producer wasn’t interested in finding it, remaining content to churn out an endless array of lowbrow comedies that would almost always receive a vitriolic reception from anybody with a pair of eyes, a sense of humour, and an interest in cinema. Statistically, he’s the worst-reviewed actor that Ebert ever encountered in his career, which appeared to hurt him a little bit.
“Do I have something visceral against Adam Sandler?” he queried. “I hope not. I try to keep an open mind and approach every movie with high hopes. It would give me enormous satisfaction (and relief) to like him in a movie. But I suggest he is making a tactical error when he creates a character whose manner and voice has the effect of fingernails on a blackboard, and expects us to hang in there for a whole movie.”
Sandler has always been a divisive presence, and there’s no denying that he’s got a loyal legion of fans. By all accounts, he’s also one of the nicest guys in the business, so no matter how many crimes against cinema he commits, he’ll always have his defenders. Ebert wouldn’t have minded being one of them, but he wasn’t.
Punch-Drunk Love must have been a strange one for him to see, with Ebert admitting that it was “exhilarating to watch because Sandler, liberated from the constraints of formula, reveals unexpected depths as an actor,” but in the same review, he also sums up the actor’s entire career by describing him as “Hannibal Lecter in a Jerry Lewis body.”
He summed up Paul Thomas Anderson’s dramedy by asking, “He can’t go on making those moronic comedies forever, can he?” and for the most part, he has. Sadly, he wasn’t around to see Uncut Gems, Hustle, or Jay Kelly, missing out on the ‘Sandman’ finally making strides to become the actor Ebert always had the sneaking suspicion he could be.
