By Vincent Abbatecola
Two years ago, directors Josh and Benny Safdie brought audiences along on an unsettling journey through New York City with their film, “Good Time,” which follows a bank robber as he tries to come up with bail money for his brother. It was one of the best films of 2017 and offered a visceral experience that had you descend into the underbelly of NYC in such a way that made you want to shower afterwards. It was the movie that introduced me to this filmmaking duo, and since then, I have waited with a lot of anticipation as to what they would do next.
The Safdies now bring us on another fast-paced, emotional, and grimy excursion into NYC with their latest crime thriller, “Uncut Gems,” whose breathless direction and fantastic performance from Adam Sandler has the movie fly by on an energy that doesn’t let up for a minute.
Howard Ratner (Sander) is a gambling addict and jeweler in the Diamond District of NYC. After a rare gem that he recently purchased is taken from him, he must find a way to retrieve it in order to pay off his debts.
Sandler gives us a career-redefining performance that’s so good that it has the power to cancel out all of the bad comedies that he’s done over the past few years and have you wonder where this intensity was hiding throughout all of this time. Sandler manages to be funny, dislikable, and poignant as he encounters one nerve-racking scenario after another, always threatening to become undone as the pressure mounts. We’ve seen Sandler do dramatic work before, but he hasn’t done anything quite like this. He leaves you in a state of shock throughout the whole movie because you’re watching this new side of his acting, and you’re nerves are frying as you’re left wondering what Howard is going to do next and pondering what surprises he has in store for his unsuspecting audience. Unlike the gem at the center of the story, let’s hope that a dramatic performance from Sandler on this level doesn’t become a rare thing.
Populating Howard’s hectic and unpredictable life is a terrific supporting cast, which includes Idina Manzel as Howard’s wife, Dinah; Lakeith Stanfield as Howard’s assistant, Demany; Julia Fox as Howard’s employee and girlfriend, Julia; and basketball star Kevin Garnett, as himself, giving a performance that’s surprisingly good, seeing as acting done by athletes isn’t always the best. Whether it’s any of these characters stirring up trouble for Howard, or vice versa, the interactions that they share with him and the vivacity that each of their performances offers has you wonder how much more it will take for all of the tension to boil over into irreversible actions.
What’s effective about certain cast members either appearing as themselves (such as Garnett and singer The Weeknd) or portraying fictional characters with their same names (Fox and Menzel, the latter of whom has the name Dinah, pronounced as “dee-na,” the same as the last two syllables of her first name) is that it provides the movie with real-world feeling, as if we’re watching an actual person go through these anxiety-inducing events. This adds an extra layer of apprehension that helps draw you in closer to Howard’s disorderly whirlwind of an existence.
The screenplay by the Safdie brothers and Ronald Bronstein, the latter of whom has collaborated with the Safdies on several of their films as a writer, editor, and actor, constructs a story that comes loaded with distinctive characters, all of whom give you an idea of the kind of world in which Howard works. It’s a narrative that thrives on situations that become more nail-biting as Howard digs himself deeper and deeper into trouble that puts his life at risk. Between the scenes with him and his family, and the ones between him and those with whom he conducts his business, we’re given a sense of how much he has burrowed himself into his business as we see the neglect for his family and the rough connections that he has made within the Diamond District. It’s through all of this that we see how little he appreciates what should be the most important aspect of his life, and we watch the movie and hope that he untangles himself from the mess of his business, before it’s too late.
One of the most notable aspects of the movie is how the screenwriters format a majority of the dialogue in such a way that the dialogue of one character overlaps with that of others, which adds to the increasing tension and sense of confusion among the characters. You’re trying to keep up with what everyone is saying as you sense chaos coming from all directions, and it leaves you immersed in the frenetic environment of the film’s setting.
The Safdies imbue their film with a fiery vigor that permeates from the script, camera movements, actors, and environment. Just like with “Good Time,” they capture NYC in such a way that unsettles you, but has you want to go further into their depiction of the city and see what methods Howard will employ to fix his life. They use cinematography by Darius Khondji, which makes great utilization of closeups, whether it be of an individual where we can just focus on that particular characters’ facial expressions, or if there are multiple characters occupying the frame and making you feel the intensity that they throw at each other; and, they also use a bracing techno score from Daniel Lopatin, who provided the music for “Good Time” under his recording alias, Oneohtrix Point Never. All of this helps us become invested in the roughness of the city as we see Howard’s situation become more and more stressful.
There’s a point in the movie where Howard says, “They say you can see the whole universe in opals.” Well, in this movie, you can see a whole new universe of possibilities open for Sandler and the Safdies.