2019’s Uncut Gems,
directed by The Safdie Brothers.
Starring Adam Sandler, Keith Williams Richards, Tommy
Kominik, Eric Bogosian, Julia Fox, Kevin Garnett, LaKeith Stanfield, Idina
Menzel, Jonathan Aranbayev, Noa Fisher, Jacob Igielski, and The Weeknd.
What is it about?
Set in New York City during 2012, Howard Ratner (Adam
Sandler) runs a jewellery business from within the diamond district. Ratner is
afflicted with a full bore gambling addiction, and owes money to a number of
debtors, including his Father-in-law, Arno (Eric Bogosian). When a stone of
opals of immense value come into his orbit, Ratner tries to sell them to NBA
player Kevin Garnett- but not without trying to drive up prices, and set
himself up for his biggest score yet. With Ratner’s home life already rocky
with his wife (Idina Menzel) and 3 kids (Jonathan Aranbayev, Noa Fisher, and
Jacob Igielski), no thanks to his erratic behaviours and an affair (Julia Fox),
will his reckless ways be his undoing?
Why is it worth seeing?
Writer/Directors the Safdie brothers, well experienced in
showing off unique and character filled corners of their beloved home town of
New York City, specialize in a kind of independent, guerilla-like cinema, using
local actors and shooting without permits. However, 2017’s Good Time, featured international star Robert Pattinson, racing
through their locally sourced desperate and frantic city scape in search of a
scheme to generate cash, and Uncut Gems,
stars A lister Adam Sandler, as their latest protagonist to undergo trials of flawed
characters who dig themselves out of holes- by digging deeper.
Specialists in creating experiences of anxiety, even for them, the Safdies’ Gems hits new levels of authentically frantic chaos. Supported by cinematographer Darius Khondji to produce the grubby and unnatural almost 70’s aesthetic, packed with artificial lights, and an electronically ill at ease score by repeat collaborator Daniel Lopatin (who also goes by Oneohtrix Point Never), it pairs with the Safdies’ tight handheld camerawork and at times frantic editing to produce the sensation of never quite being settled. Characters are always in motion, onto the next bout of impulsivity, with multiple people aggressively talking at once- and that’s when they’re not arguing. It’s like a binge of uppers- for those who think Red Bull is too much like chamomile.
Centred square in the contact high explosion is Sandler’s character of Howard Ratner. One could say it’s a role he was born to play, that of a frantic Jewish jeweller who never saw a bet he couldn’t make with someone else’s money. It’s a tour de force of desperate energy and charisma, with him simultaneously scraping the bottom of the barrel, careening from ill advised scheme to worse scheme, lying to anything with a face or a voice, while you still consider rooting for him: to play it straight, to make things right with his estranged and exasperated wife, to be a father to his children (note the embarrassed teenage indifference from his oldest kid, or the way his younger sons emulate him). One of the more interesting features of Ratner, is how unlike a lot of Safdie past characters, is that he does have a pot to piss in. Witness the business that he “runs”, the nice suburban house with a swimming pool (which may or may not have been recently resurfaced), the uptown apartment for the mistress, and a wife who may reject her husband for his life choices- but not necessarily his income. But that’s moot, as Ratner has a different type of success in mind- that involves betting the farm, despite all odds. The Safdies are well established in the world of addictions, whatever it be drugs, or clever but bumbling criminality, so the relatively ethically encouraged and money goosed capitalistic world of sports betting is an ideal fit for the upper class deadbeat.
For decades, Sandler has proven that when he brings it, he’s more than capable of creating characters worth caring about- regardless of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ thoughts on him. He’s had more than enough lazy and repulsive stinkers to make people disregard him on principle, but they’re ignoring Sandler’s long list of successes (and non failures), and his presence anchors the proceedings to showcase the best and the worst of the Safdies’ tendencies. Helping their best case scenario, is the “discovery” of Kevin Garnett, at least as an actor. There are those who may scoff at the concept of actors (particularly celebrities) playing themselves, saying it’s easy and worthy of dismissal, but there is a long list of basketball actors in cinema history who have outright stunk. But Garnett has a level of ( yes, his trademark) intensity, but also a piercing calmness, particularly as someone employed in the show who tries to level with his unique and chaotic jeweller when the rubber hits the road. They drive the film forwards, as the Safdies figure out ways to pack the margins of the film with non professional actors and characters who possibly didn’t know they were filming…
After a succession of films highlighting the less highlight worthy areas of New York, an increased budget and notoriety leading to a similar scuzzy outcome has one wonder if the Safdies potentially limit themselves to one kind of shtick, that of desperate con artists running around the city for one reason or another. The Safdies can do a electrifying desperate crime/thriller as well as anyone- likely why they’re being rumoured to remake 48 Hours. But with their encyclopedic love of films, one can’t wonder what something with less focus on stylized desperation, and more of something resembling the circle time activities featured through the closing credits of Good Time, could look like. At least for now, they’ll stick to upping the ante on beating the house at its own game in one of the year’s best films.
Specialists in creating experiences of anxiety, even for them, the Safdies’ Gems hits new levels of authentically frantic chaos. Supported by cinematographer Darius Khondji to produce the grubby and unnatural almost 70’s aesthetic, packed with artificial lights, and an electronically ill at ease score by repeat collaborator Daniel Lopatin (who also goes by Oneohtrix Point Never), it pairs with the Safdies’ tight handheld camerawork and at times frantic editing to produce the sensation of never quite being settled. Characters are always in motion, onto the next bout of impulsivity, with multiple people aggressively talking at once- and that’s when they’re not arguing. It’s like a binge of uppers- for those who think Red Bull is too much like chamomile.
Centred square in the contact high explosion is Sandler’s character of Howard Ratner. One could say it’s a role he was born to play, that of a frantic Jewish jeweller who never saw a bet he couldn’t make with someone else’s money. It’s a tour de force of desperate energy and charisma, with him simultaneously scraping the bottom of the barrel, careening from ill advised scheme to worse scheme, lying to anything with a face or a voice, while you still consider rooting for him: to play it straight, to make things right with his estranged and exasperated wife, to be a father to his children (note the embarrassed teenage indifference from his oldest kid, or the way his younger sons emulate him). One of the more interesting features of Ratner, is how unlike a lot of Safdie past characters, is that he does have a pot to piss in. Witness the business that he “runs”, the nice suburban house with a swimming pool (which may or may not have been recently resurfaced), the uptown apartment for the mistress, and a wife who may reject her husband for his life choices- but not necessarily his income. But that’s moot, as Ratner has a different type of success in mind- that involves betting the farm, despite all odds. The Safdies are well established in the world of addictions, whatever it be drugs, or clever but bumbling criminality, so the relatively ethically encouraged and money goosed capitalistic world of sports betting is an ideal fit for the upper class deadbeat.
For decades, Sandler has proven that when he brings it, he’s more than capable of creating characters worth caring about- regardless of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ thoughts on him. He’s had more than enough lazy and repulsive stinkers to make people disregard him on principle, but they’re ignoring Sandler’s long list of successes (and non failures), and his presence anchors the proceedings to showcase the best and the worst of the Safdies’ tendencies. Helping their best case scenario, is the “discovery” of Kevin Garnett, at least as an actor. There are those who may scoff at the concept of actors (particularly celebrities) playing themselves, saying it’s easy and worthy of dismissal, but there is a long list of basketball actors in cinema history who have outright stunk. But Garnett has a level of ( yes, his trademark) intensity, but also a piercing calmness, particularly as someone employed in the show who tries to level with his unique and chaotic jeweller when the rubber hits the road. They drive the film forwards, as the Safdies figure out ways to pack the margins of the film with non professional actors and characters who possibly didn’t know they were filming…
After a succession of films highlighting the less highlight worthy areas of New York, an increased budget and notoriety leading to a similar scuzzy outcome has one wonder if the Safdies potentially limit themselves to one kind of shtick, that of desperate con artists running around the city for one reason or another. The Safdies can do a electrifying desperate crime/thriller as well as anyone- likely why they’re being rumoured to remake 48 Hours. But with their encyclopedic love of films, one can’t wonder what something with less focus on stylized desperation, and more of something resembling the circle time activities featured through the closing credits of Good Time, could look like. At least for now, they’ll stick to upping the ante on beating the house at its own game in one of the year’s best films.
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