Howard is a screw-up, but thanks to a support network that has recently been cut loose, he’s managed to stay afloat running a business in New York’s diamond district, selling tacky yet expensive items to clients with more money than sense. With Uncut Gems, they’ve taken one of the biggest stars on the planet, Adam Sandler, and cast him against type in a gamble of the sort the character he plays in the movie, Howard Ratner, would be proud of. They’ve earned a reputation for mining striking performances from inexperienced actors like Arielle Holmes and Buddy Duress, but recently they’ve begun dropping superstars into their unique mix, with Robert Pattinson leading a largely otherwise amateur cast in their previous film, Good Time. Welcome back to proper movies, Sandman, we missed you.Over their relatively short filmmaking careers, the Safdie brothers (Josh and Benny) have established themselves as the chroniclers du jour of New York street life, employing that city in a way rarely seen since the 1970s. While the film doesn’t fully explore some aspects of the plot - the history around the blood diamond is only alluded to here, unfortunately - the film is a strong example of how to make an audience sit on the edge of their seat, watching one man self destruct for 2 hours and 40 minutes. This is clearly a passion project, shown purely by the fact that the Safdie’s sat on this for ten years until financing came and used the interest generated by Good Time to finance this instead of being lured into some kind of blockbuster movie. It’s an ode to old school filmmaking, that “cinema” that Scorsese was going on about in his controversial rantings last year. In fact at times it feels like the film version of a jazz riff, just going more and more until you feel like the intensity has to let up, and then going some more.Ī film like this shouldn’t work in the modern-day it’s too old school, the sort of movies Lumet and Martin Scorsese liked to make when they were coming up with their actors, and yet the film does work, and really should be seen. The film is, in a way, an endurance test as it continues the escalating problems that Howard finds himself in, constantly placing bets when he should quit while he’s ahead, and getting himself into more and more trouble. It makes you believe that the Happy Madison Production machine grew sentient and has forced him into some form of forced labour to do those awful Netflix films. This should be no revelation, not just for anyone who saw Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love or the 9/11 drama Reign Over Me, but even in his early stuff Sandler showed an ability to really get into a character – Big Daddy, Mr Deeds, 50 First Dates and even Click all showed that he was more than just screaming things and fart jokes. It’s the kind of funny made up of interactions and asides. Sandler leather jacket and goatee looks like it could have been a role that De Niro or Pacino could have done to Oscar acclaim in the 70s but here Sandler brings his own flair for comedy into it – and the film is funny. Howard is an unlikeable guy, and yet you sort of gain a level of affection as his time goes from bad to worse. To his (and the casting director’s) credit – Adam Sandler is perfectly cast. And this is also to the credit of the Safdie brothers. The soundtrack by Daniel Lopatin, though being entirely eighties themed, with it’s synth overdub feeling like it’s from a different film, somehow feels perfectly placed at the same time. Kevin Garnett, Lakeith Stanfield and Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems. Both brothers co-write this with Ronald Bronstein, and the film has a pace that feels like a noose tightening around your neck. Uncut Gems is a throwback movie, following Jewish jewellery dealer Howard Ratner, a man with a gambling problem and a couple of money owing problems causing him all manner of grief over a week in 2012.ĭirectors brothers Benny & Josh Safdie really made their names with 2015’s Good Time starring Robert Pattinson, and this feels like a companion piece, though much larger in its scope. It seems rather strange that this year’s awards season has neglected another funny turned serious moment, but then again, this year’s awards season has been controversial generally. Think Peter Sellers in Being There, Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting, Mo’Nique in Precious and even Jim Carrey in The Truman Show. The ‘funny person does serious movie’ moment is a time-honoured tradition that brings with it a certain level of awards notoriety. Starring Adam Sandler, Lakeith Stanfield, Julia Fox, Kevin Garnett, Idina Menzel.
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