‘Click’ is serious comedy

Adam Sandler’s new film, “Click,” has a lot more depth than his usual efforts. But you wouldn’t know it from the advertising campaign that makes it look like many of his previous childish comedies. It does start with a typical silly premise, but it slowly moves into more complex and serious emotional territory.

Sandler plays Billy Newman, an architect working so hard to advance his career that he neglects everything important to his wife and children. Strange circumstances produce a remote control that gives Billy the power to pause, rewind and fast forward the actual events of his stressful life.

The premise provides ample opportunity for low-brow humor and stupid jokes in the first half of the movie. Billy uses the magic device without thinking through its long-term effects. He lives his family life on auto-pilot while the remote propels his career into the future at a frantic pace.

Eventually the lightweight humor morphs into the disturbing realities of the modern rat race with devastating results.

Kate Beckinsale is stunning as his patient but unhappy spouse. A wry Christopher Walken is the mysterious stranger who delivers the remote.

Adam Sandler at age 39 may be trying to bridge the gap between the last two movie generations. “Click” looks a lot like “Happy Gilmore” meets Jimmy Stewart in a Saturday Night Live skit about “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Not everything works in this film, but there’s more insight than you might expect.