A likeable Sandler routine
His new Netflix standup, 100% Fresh, feels like hanging out with a friend
TRAVIS M. ANDREWS It’s safe to say that critics don’t really care for the comedic styling of Adam Sandler.
He’s a huge star, a fact Netflix bet heavily on when the streaming service signed him to a four-movie deal in 2014 and then re-upped that deal last year.
But his filmography includes at least two entries with a 0 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes ( Bucky Larson: Born to Be a
Star, and The Ridiculous 6). Several of his other films hover between the 1 and 10 per cent mark.
That probably accounts for the title of his first standup special in decades: 100% Fresh. It’s part of his Netflix deal that has yielded a crop of movies critics have generally despised.
The most surprising part is simply that the new special is good. And why it’s good might be illuminating: it relies on nothing but Sandler’s absurdist observations and puerile humour distilled in short parody songs that can’t help but worm their way into your head.
Sandler doesn’t totally ditch the silly voices or ridiculous characters; he just doesn’t try turning them into a featurelength movie. Instead, the whole special feels like it was made for the social media generation. It’s culled from dozens of live performances from venues ranging from tiny comedy clubs to arenas in Los Angeles and New Jersey.
Nearly every segment — the longest of which lasts about a minute, until the final 10 minutes — comes from a different appearance. Sometimes multi- ple performances are spliced together into a single, less than 60-second bit.
That quickness enhances the special, allowing it to feel like hanging out with a friend who’s just riffing on anything that comes to mind — a far cry from spending 90 minutes with one, singular idea.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the special is how gifted a musician the comic is. He perfectly apes artists as wide-ranging as Joy Division, Interpol, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel and Migos. The songs are joyfully childish, generally revolving around a simple idea like a smelly Uber driver, what we carry in our pockets in the modern world or your kid being cast in a school play.
The two best moments that are almost assured to go viral on social media are unexpected in wildly different ways.
One is a pre-recorded bit of Sandler in disguise attempting to busk in a New York City subway. He’s performing the same material as in this special, but no one finds him funny. He doesn’t get a cent, but he does get some dirty looks.
The second is the totally unexpected one-two punch of the show’s final songs: one an ode to his late friend Chris Farley and the other an ode to his wife, Jackie.
Sandler sings about his friend with an unexpected sincerity, even though the lyrics generally remain humorous. Then he sings some truth: “We’d tell him somehow you’ll end up like Belushi and Candy / He said those guys are my heroes, that’s all fine and dandy.”
Sandler then offers a painful scene from Farley’s funeral:
“Nothing was harder than saying goodbye / Except watching Chris’ father have his turn to cry.”
For the last few minutes, Sandler holds on to that vulnerability by closing the show with a sincere — if not funny and a little dirty — song to his wife, in an updated version of “Grow Old With You” from The Wedding Singer.
It chronicles their relationship, including a callback to the special’s title: “When I’m on a diet, you take away my potatoes / Say ‘(expletive) all those guys after reading Rotten Tomatoes / I hope they all die miserable deaths as I grow old with you.’ ”
Perhaps, for the first time in a long while, Jackie won’t have to wish death to the critics. Most are praising the special.