Why Does Adam Sandler’s 'Click' Make Men Cry?
It may have something to do with their dads.
One of Adam Sandler’s lesser masterpieces is the 2006 film Click. Sandler plays Michael Newman, a schlubby, overworked architect who neglects his two small children and smoking-hot wife (Kate Beckinsale). One day, on a trip to Bed Bath & Beyond, Michael is given a special remote by Christopher Walken that can pause, fast forward, or rewind his life with a simple click.
One might assume Michael would use this remote in the most obvious way: to press pause so he could complete all his work, and then press play to maximize his time with his family.
Instead, Michael uses the remote to fast-forward through his life so he can finally be at a place in his career where he’s making enough money. Only he realizes that by fast-forwarding, the remote starts skipping chapters and speeding ahead even without him wanting to, and he misses out on the best moments of his life. Despite his success at work, Michael loses out on all the experiences that make life good. Sad?
To me, no. But apparently, to many men, yes. In fact, Click seems to be a formative tearjerker for a certain segment of the population, and for the last 16 years I’ve been consistently hearing men confess that it made them cry. And it’s been true for all kinds of men in my life: friends, enemies, randos. A man with whom I worked who I can only describe as having murderer vibes once mentioned how the movie made him weep. And it’s not just men I come in contact with, even random dudes online seem to be crying over Click. On Reddit, one man wrote: “It’s disturbing that I can watch Schindler’s List and not feel anything, but watching Adam Sandler in a fat suit break out of a futuristic hospital to tell his son that ‘family comes first’ is too much for me.” Indeed.
Was this a real thing? I recently set out to ask men I knew if they had cried at Click to make sure I wasn’t just imagining things. The overwhelming verdict? Yes. Here are a few sample conversations.
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So, point proven, but I felt no closer to an answer: Why do men cry at Click?
I asked New York magazine’s Jesse David Fox, who ranked Click as the No. 1 Adam Sandler movie ever made, why it makes so many men cry. He explained it could be because men do not get exposed to much “cry-inducing art.” “Adam Sandler movies are a bit of a safe space,” he said. “I also have to imagine that because of this same scarcity of cry-inducing viewership, Click stands out even more.”
Another reason that the film brings men to tears? Dad stuff. “It is notable that the death of Sandler's dad is what inspired him to make the movie,” Jesse said.
While I accept that sometimes it takes Adam Sandler in a fat suit to make a man weep, I cannot respect it. I thought getting closer to the “why” of it all would put me at ease, but it has only unsettled me further. If only there was a way I could hit rewind.
