Review
Take a little "Memento" Add a generous helping of "Groundhog Day" and even a little of "Sommersby" and you have "50 First Dates". Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler create a synergy that neither has been able to capture with anyone else. Together they produce a romantic team comparable to Gere and Roberts Day and Hudson Grant and Loren and Tracy and Hepburn. My wife and I watch "The Wedding Singer" at least once a year. While "50 First Dates" is a superior movie I dont know if I can take the melancholy ending again.
For once Im grateful for the Khamakazee antics of Sandlers acting ensemble particulary Sean Astin and Rob Schneider. If Schneider wasnt playing such a farcial role he would be a natural for an Oscar. Certainly the animals add a lot to the farce. The goofy humor makes the basically tragic scenario not only bearable but almost pleasant. Its also genuinely funny.
Sandler convincingly plays a marine biologist(!!!)in Hawaii who enjoys "entertaining" the "mainlanders." Sandler doesnt date "locals". He wants nothing to interfere with his dream of studying walruses. He discovers Barrymore having breakfast in a local bar and grill. What captures Sandlers attention even more than her beauty is Barrymores creativity. What Sandler doesnt know is that Barrymore has brain damage. The brain cells which move short term memory to long term storage are destroyed. She forgots everything shes learned during the day while she sleeps. So Sandler the lothario who forgots his relationships with mainlanders after one week finds himself in love with a woman who forgets hers in 24 hours. Thats writing genius something you dont see very often and Sandler Barrymore and Sandlers acting troupe handle it perfectly.
Though my wife is physically handicapped my mother has severe short term memory loss. So I really related to the trajedy so expertly portrayed in "50 First Dates". Its not often I give a movie that leaves me this sad a "10". The last time I believe was "Sommersby". Nonetheless "50 First Dates" is a "10" since there is nothing about it I can suggest that make it better.
P.S. Looking forward to the NEXT SandlerBarrymore collaboration.