On paper, Uncut Gems reads like a tale of Talmudic recompense, the story of Jewish diamond dealer Howard Ratner, his debts, his rocky marriage and his pending colon cancer diagnosis during Passover.
Howard, played by Adam Sandler, is a rough-around-the-edges father of three, and in the hands of lesser filmmakers, his story might’ve made for an adequately charming dramedy about working one’s way out of financial corners and making amends with family. It is, in a way, but in the hands of Josh and Benny Safdie — whose sleazy, high-intensity New York indies feel like genetic hybrids between John Cassavetes and 1970s Times Square pornos — the film proves to be intoxicating on the surface, and downright stressful underneath.
Uncut Gems is one of the very few movies to exude BME: Big Mad Max: Fury Road Energy. It’s a mile-a-minute masterpiece punctuated by shots of adrenaline, and anchored by career-best work from Sandler and everyone involved. It’s not just about a man trying to be righteous in an un-righteous world — Jordan Hoffman calls it “aggressively Jewish” in his Times of Israel interview with the Safdies — it’s also about how that struggle for righteousness gets complicated when addiction is thrown in the mix.
Where the Safdies’ recent efforts (Good Time, Heaven Knows What) plunge into the world of street drugs, Uncut Gems is about a man who can’t stop betting on basketball games. In some ways, the film even follows the structure of a sports film; it features the same highs and lows, the same speeches and rousing moments, and the same cross-cut climax involving the big game and secondary characters watching it intently — only it’s told from the perspective of one of those outsiders looking in. But basketball, and sports betting, are just the vehicles for Howard’s real addiction. The high he chases is success, in whatever twisted form he can get it and no matter how much it hurts him.
He’s a loser addicted to winning.
Howard’s way in to the world of NBA happens to be real-life Boston Celtics player Kevin Garnett, who plays a warped version of himself during the summer of 2012. Upon visiting Howard’s window-less showroom in New York’s Diamond District (accompanied by Lakeith Stanfield as hot-headed assistant Demany, who helps Howard reach high-profile Black clientele), Garnett becomes obsessed with a gorgeous uncut black opal, which Howard painstakingly smuggled from an Ethiopian Jewish tribe. Garnett, or “KG,” is convinced the opal gives him mystical good luck, but the stone isn’t for sale; in fact, Howard has just agreed to auction it so he can pay people back. Through a barter intended to be temporary, the stone ends up in Garnett’s possession for longer than Howard can afford.
Given the number of people Howard already owes — including a group of tough-as-nails loan sharks who begin to stalk him at family events — he goes down a path of increasingly desperate hijinks. What little money he does make ends up with his bookie, in case he can make some more, and the snowball effect of his borrowing-and-betting soon leads to chaos. It’s this chaos which the Safdie brothers are so adept at capturing, and which editors Benny Safdie and Ronald Bronstein (who co-wrote the film) build on so methodically, ultimately re-shaping it in the film’s heart-pounding climax, into something rhythmic and euphoric.
The film is cacophonous, rife with overlapping dialogue that makes even small-talk teeter towards sensory overload. However, it achieves momentary serenity in the moments someone talks business; this clarity makes Howard, and the audience, perk up and pay attention. Similarly, objects and people which Howard finds alluring (financially, sexually, or both), exhibit a luminescent quality. Mere minutes into the film, as Howard goes about a regular work day, his messy state of mind is crystal clear to us: everything and everyone is noise — unless they can help him either crawl out from under his debts, or place new bets.
Howard is a man who has nothing but good luck, even at betting, but he either squanders it at every turn, or has it squandered by people he already owes. The filmmakers constantly subvert expectations by setting up scenes where it seems like his personal life is about to implode, and then it doesn’t (among them: a secret visit to his young mistress, played by Julia Fox, that feels like it could go wrong in ten different ways). Yet moments later, Howard’s addiction causes things to implode anyway, either through his own actions or six-degree domino effects.
Sandler plays Howard as a man spread paper-thin, both by his financial situation and by his life on the brink of divorce. Every exhausted line of dialogue is uttered from between clenched jaws, as a forced smile sits jaggedly beneath his eyes. If you’re alive and reading this in the shit-show that is 2020, it’s hard not to see him as a mirror. He radiates the feeling of “barely keeping it together,” in what isn’t just the best performance of his career, but the best performance by any American actor in 2019; it’s a sham(e) the Oscars don’t recognise this.
Each supporting performance stands out too, thanks in part to the Safdies’ penchant for filling non-star roles with everyday people. Non-actors, first-time actors, and veterans usually relegated to the margins all shine in the Safdies’ work, especially in Uncut Gems, where characters veer in and out of Howard’s day at breakneck speed, but still leave a lasting impact. It’s one of the few films to capture the radioactive, in-your-face energy of walking down a crowded New York sidewalk.
The Safdies’ gritty approach extends, unapologetically, to their use of faces and bodies far outside “conventionally attractive” norms. It’s realism as stylism in the context of Hollywood gloss, whether it’s Sandler’s naked “dad bod” during vulnerable moments, or a uniquely-shaped face you’d remember vividly if you passed it on the street. Each close-up reveals seams most often hidden by makeup, from wrinkles to razor burns, and each character gets to look as achingly human as they feel. Idina Menzel plays Howard’s fed-up wife Dinah, a woman whose composure feels like a dam about to break. Radio host Mike Francesca shows up as fast-talking bookie Gary, a man too preoccupied for Howard’s problems. Eric Bogosian plays Arno, a stone-faced loan shark with whom Howard shares a surprising history. Millionaire gambling addict Wayne Diamond plays… himself? The list goes on.
The Safdies love unusual faces as much cinematographer Darius Khondji (The Lost City of Z) loves dark environments. Most of the film unfolds in dim locales, but it’s never hard to tell what’s actually happening; often times, mere glimpses of eyes or mouths are enough to convey a core sensation. The film was shot using long, anamorphic lenses, which make every rapid lateral movement feel disorienting, especially in tight spaces. The deep black-ness in the frame provides a greater contrast with the garish colours — most often, hues of blue — and shooting these low-light scenes on 35mm lends itself to a heavy film grain reminiscent of seedy ’80s crime flicks (picture Joker’s aesthetic, but actually purposeful). The combination of grain and lens choice adds a peculiar, fluid texture to the aforementioned un-made-up faces, as if your eyes are meant to dart towards and around them, taking in each imperfect detail.
When Howard is kidnapped in a dimly-lit car, all the characters are shot almost entirely in closeup. Relevant exposition claws its way out from under chaotic yelling — you barely notice the word “fuck” is used a record 408 times — as more than half the screen is occupied either by Sandler’s disheveled five o’clock shadow, or Bogosian’s world-weary dark circles. It’s a scene emblematic of most of the film, and the collective effect is nerve-wracking; all that’s missing is the stench of stress sweat.
I could spend all day fawning over the plot — have you really experienced cinema if you haven’t seen the star of Grown Ups 2 fight a coked-up The Weekend, awash in black light and set to Kendrick Lamar? — but words pale in comparison to being swept up in the film’s discordant melody (punctuated by the unsettling synth sounds of experimental musician Oneohtrix Point Never).
Uncut Gems is the kind of movie that burrows into your pores. It makes you feel unclean, but it’s also a rapturous experience; a “rollercoaster of emotions” insofar as the rollercoaster has malfunctioned mid-loop, oscillating back and forth while you’re suspended in free-fall.
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