Barry Egan is the protagonist from the 2002 film Punch-Drunk Love. He is portrayed by Adam Sandler. A plotline regarding Egan's exploitation of Healthy Food Choice promotions is based on the true story of David Phillips, however the similarities end there. Contents [hideshow] 1. Events of Punch-Drunk Love 2. Personality Events of Punch-Drunk LoveOver the course of a single morning, Barry Egan, owner of a small toiletry company, uncovers a loophole in a Healthy Food Choice frequent flyer miles promotion (which would potentially earn him a life time of free plane travel), witnesses a car crash, steals a harmonium that he mistakes for a piano on the street and encounters a mysterious woman named Lena Leonard who asks if he will mind her car while she is gone.Later in the same day he is called repeatedly at his workplace by his seven sisters, each of whom are belligerent and intrusive into his privacy, to make sure he attends a party. Elizabeth, the sister he is closest to, arrives and tries to browbeat him into being introduced to an attractive friend of hers at the party. He adamantly refuses and even tries to back out of the party completely. At the family get together, he is endlessly mocked by his sisters for not taking up on Elizabeths offer, which causes him to smash three sliding glass windows in a angry outburst.After buying large amounts of pudding in part of his Frequent Flyer Mile scam, he decides to call up a phone sex line just to talk to somebody. Partly out of desperation and naivity, he gives the operator his social service number and other important details, which she uses the next day to try to extort money from him. Anxious, he cancels his credit cards and repeatedly hangs up on the woman (who now has the phone number to his place of work and home). Elizabeth arrives again to Barry's work, this time with Lena, who is her co-worker. Lena travels across the world for his business and mentions she will be in Hawaii sometime soon. Lena and Barry arrange to go on to a restaurant as a date, despite his building stresses.The date goes awkwardly; Barry confides in Lena about his Pudding scheme and Lena admits that she plotted their initial chance encounter in a ruse to meet him because she became fascinated with Barry after seeing him in a picture Elizabeth owned. The date takes a sharp turn when Lena mentions an anecdote Elizabeth told her about Barry throwing a hammer through a window (a tale earlier told at the party). Barry nearly bursts into tears and denies the event, before going to the public toilets and thrashing the bathroom. They are told to leave, where Barry also admits to stealing the harmonium (and learning to play it). In the end, Barry and Lena kiss and he bids her a good trip.When Barry arrives home he is assaulted by the four brothers of the phone sex operator, on orders of her boss Dean Trumbell aka The Mattress Man (because he owns a Mattress store in Utah). He gives them some of his money before running away.Barry, fearing for his safety but also deeply attracted to Lena, decides to follow her to Hawaii. He purchases even more pudding, but is told by Healthy Choice that the frequent flyer miles take 5 weeks before they can be used. Instead he simply buys a ticket and travels to Honolulu. When he gets there he calls Elizabeth trying to deduce where Lena is staying under the ruse that she left her purse behind at his office. Aware that he is lying she tries to bait him but is shocked when Barry viciously rebukes her. She eventually gives him the number and Lena and Barry meet at a hotel, dance by the beachside and spend the night together.When they arrive back to California, the four brothers drive their car into Barry's, which gives Lena a slight head injury. Infuriated (yet calmer than previous times) he fights the four brothers with a tire iron and defeats them with surprising efficiency. At the hospital, Barry decides to settle his feud with the sex line operators and talks directly to Dean over the phone. They exchange heated words, which enrages Barry so much so that he travels to Utah with the same phone still in hand and confronts Dean in his mattress store. Trumbell attempts to shame and intimidate Barry further but Barry declares that with love in his life now, he is no longer afraid of anyone. Dean, proving himself to be a coward, finally relents and promises to leave Barry in peace.When he returns to California, he goes to Lena's apartment and explains the entire situation. He also apologises repeatedly and hopes she will forgive him. He expresses his love for her and his idea to use his unlimited frequent flier miles to accompany her to all her trips. She forgives him and they hug.The final scene shows Barry, finally able to play the harmonium, with Lena holding him in a tight embrace. Personality Barry frequently presents himself with an almost dull politeness to his family and coworkers, but his uneasiness with these encounters causes him to be very tense and awkward. He keeps his vibrant, quirky personality hidden from most people and his various ventures (like stealing a harmonium, cheating Healthy Choice, and courting Lena) he tries to keep to himself.Arguably Barry's most defining trait is the fact he is a very private person who despises people's intrusions. This is of course the one thing his seven sisters do constantly (along with bully and belittle him) through his entire life, which has made him an intensely unhappy and lonely adult. It has also made him a very guarded person who seems to feel constantly threatened by everyone. He often comes across as being neurotic to the point of mental illness, where he barely manages to have normal conversations with people he knows on a day to day basis.He is also quite naive in his outlook on life. He readily gives up important information to the phone sex line and is somewhat scared during his flight to Hawaii as he has never been on a plane before. When he arrives in Honolulu he asks a cab driver to take him to where the hotels and beaches are and requests a telephone.In a conversation with Elizabeth's husband, Barry admits to suffering from severe depression and self hatred. When he leaves Lena's apartment after their first date he repeatedly calls himself a stupid mother fucker for not kissing her.His frustration and self loathing have given him a hair trigger temper, which often erupts in bursts of undirected violence. This frequently gets him into trouble and nearly jeapordises his romance with Lena.Despite his shortcomings, Barry is very capable at his job and evidently pretty good with calculations and is almost eidetic in memory. He remembers the four brother's license plate and the briefly mentioned D&D Mattress Man that was supposedly the guise the phone sex line would appear as on his phone bill. He also figures out the Healthy Food Choice loophole and, according to Barry at least, his business is growing in success.Ultimately, his relationship with Lena causes him to become less withdrawn and more adventurous. His first encounter with the four brothers nearly sends him into hysterics but when Lena is harmed by them he is controlled and fearless. His ability to have a strictly personal conversation with Lena makes him far more relaxed as the film progresses, and he even settles his battle with Dean Trumbell in a non violent manner. Show less «