Movie Review: "Uncut Gems" Is a Beautiful Nightmare

The Sandman and the Safdies went and cut a cinematic gem.

You don’t usually feel the crushing weight of paralytic anxiety during Adam Sandler’s films. Maybe you’ll experience a touch of existential melancholy, or suddenly feel awash with deadened malaise. It really depends on how much you enjoy seeing him cut it up with Rob Schneider and Kevin James.

But chest-throbbing, is-this-a-heart-attack-or-am-I-just-watching-a-Safdies-brothers-movie nervousness? That’s just not his brand. I certainly don’t remember getting that from Spanglish.

I got it from Uncut Gems though, which makes sense, because it is a Safdies brothers movie. Josh and Benny Safdie spent a decade working on this chaotic, head-spinning, beautiful nightmare, intent on casting Sandler as Howard Ratner, the frantic diamond-dealer at the picture’s center. All three even spent time observing New York’s diamond district for authenticity. Again: authenticity, not a Sandler hallmark.

It’s no surprise, these days, that Sandler can act. He’s proven it with auteur-helmed dramas Punch Drunk Love and The Meyerowitz Stories, and, we’ll say it, with his full-throated commitment in Billy Madison, You Don’t Mess With the Zohan or any of his broad comedies where he actually cares. It is surprising when he decides to descend into the bowels of hell for two indie filmmakers, when he could be off in Hawaii or Fiji making another straight-to-Netflix pic with his buddies. Sandler is surely the only working actor who needs a vacation from his never-ending professional vacation.

While waiting for Sandler to sign on, the Safdies shot Heaven Knows What and Good Time, cacophonous movies that never stop being stressful. That turned out to be fine practice for Uncut Gems, the most relentless film since, well, Good Time and Heaven Knows What. They certainly have a type.

Uncut Gems is very much a culmination of their work to date, right down to the spiralling anti-hero at its core. In debt to a lot of dangerous people, Howard begins the movie acquiring a rare opal from Ethiopia, intending to sell it for a million dollars and getting square with all his lenders. The problem is that whenever he gets a little bit (or a lot) of money, he tries to turn it into more by betting on the basketball. He reckons he’s onto a winner when Boston Celtics forward Kevin Garnett arrives in his shop and, after experiencing a cosmic connection with the opal, borrows it for the NBA Eastern Conference Finals. (The flick is set during 2012, when Garnett, a real-life player starring as himself, was still competing in the league.) So Howard bets on Garnett's game, even as the grip of the debt collectors grows ever tighter around his throat and the stone slips from his grasp.

That synopsis doesn’t touch on the multitude of oddballs, criminals, estranged family members, questionable friends, users and hangers-on who get tangled up in Howard’s gnarly web (or the miners who risk life and limb for the opal in the picture’s sweeping opening sequence). The supporting cast around Sandler is excellent, and all morally dubious, including Julia Fox as his girlfriend, Lakeith Stanfield as his colleague, and Eric Bogosian as his brother-in-law. Idina Menzel—who gets a cutting, ovation-worthy monologue as Howard’s ex-wife—and Garnett—surprisingly affecting as a baller on his own spiritual journey of the self—are also brilliant. Yet it’s Sandler who astounds, going dark and grimy while retaining his charismatic comic spark. It’s a short walk from Bobby Boucher to Howard Ratner; the difference is the desperation. Sandler’s often played a character about to fly off the handle, but never seemed so ready to spin into oblivion.

That said, fans of The Waterboy should go into Uncut Gems with plenty of high quality H2O to make up for all the juices they’ll be projectile-sweating out of their pores. Darius Khondji’s kaleidoscopic cinematography and Daniel Lopatin’s electronic score add to the film’s claustrophobia while maintaining forward propulsion, mimicking a protagonist that can’t stop struggling out of a coffin of his own making.

Of course, the Safdies haven’t just made a white-knuckle thriller for the sake of giving everyone agita; their 10-years-in-the-making opus is a meaningful story about never feeling whole. Take it from the other-worldly opening credits, which sees the camera zoom into the titular uncut gem as it becomes a glittering solar system, until it appears to take on flesh folds, and the camera zooms back out to reveal we’ve been watching Howard Ratner get a colonoscopy. The doctor remarks that the surgery prep was successful, because he looks empty inside. Watch him fail to get full.

5/5

Uncut Gems is now streaming on Netflix. Rated MA15+ for strong violence, strong blood and gore, strong coarse language, strong crude humour.