If you were to compile a Mount Rushmore of Adam Sandler’s comedic career, the faces would be undeniable. You’d have the lovable man-child of Billy Madison , the romantic rocker of The Wedding Singer , the angry golf prodigy of Happy Gilmore . But looming largest of all, perhaps with a bottle of premium water in hand and a stutter in his voice, is Bobby Boucher.
The dynamic is classic Freudian comedy taken to the extreme. Helen Boucher represents the ultimate helicopter parent, keeping her son infantilized to ensure he never leaves her. The brilliance of the script is in the specificity of her lies. She doesn't just tell him the world is dangerous; she invents specific, bizarre enemies: "The problem is, Bobby, the medulla oblongata... The Waterboy
What made Bobby Boucher different from Sandler’s previous leads was his innocence. Billy Madison was a jerk learning to be nice; Happy Gilmore was a rage-aholic learning to focus. Bobby Boucher, by contrast, was pure. He was a 31-year-old man living in a bubble, sheltered by an overbearing mother and holding onto a job he took pride in, only to be fired for a crime he didn’t commit. The audience wasn't laughing at Bobby’s stupidity; they were laughing at the absurdity of the world reacting to him. The emotional engine of The Waterboy is the relationship between Bobby and his mother, Helen, played with scene-stealing gusto by Kathy Bates. Bates, a dramatic powerhouse who had already won an Oscar for Misery , committed fully to the absurdity of the role. If you were to compile a Mount Rushmore