It’s hard to talk about Uncut Gems without comparing it to writer-directors the Safdie brothers’ prior effort, 2017’s exceptional Good Time. In many ways, it feels like the second leg of that film’s exhausting, heart-pounding but ultimately exhilarating New York Scum Marathon, its mile markers again punctuated by violence. Once again, the brothers have us shadowing a slimy, risk-taking turd of NYC’s periphery as he hits up shady businesses where bill counters pile up even shadier money—with gritty photography, a thumping soundtrack, and a cacophony of overlapping dialogue (rather, people shouting over each other) giving it all a painfully edge-of-your-seat immediacy. But damned if this ride isn’t a repeat on giving a wonderful vehicle for the mainstream franchise vampire at its center.
A rare grown-up movie among Adam Sandler’s Grown-Ups movies, the film sees Sandler as Howard Ratner, a Manhattan Diamond District jeweler selling such “gems” as a jewel-encrusted Furby necklace. As the film opens, Howard has a couple big fish coming into his store: a massive black opal and the massive black man that is 6’11” NBA star Kevin Garnett, who plays himself. (The film seems to quietly be set in some alternate 2012, judging by the iPhones and that Garnett is 36 and still playing for Boston.) The first comes by way of a literal big fish, a clandestine seafood shipment that gives Howard a rock he estimates at being worth a cool million. Garnett arrives by way of Lakeith Stanfield’s Demany, who seeks out clients looking for the style of bling Howard provides.
Through a brief shot that involves both the most CGI the Safdies have ever used (probably?) and their only actually beautiful imagery, we see Garnett connect deeply with the—yes—uncut gem, and he insists on owning it. Howard has already promised it off to an auction house, where he thinks he’ll make his fortune with it when it’s auctioned in just days, but he eventually relents to loaning it to Garnett overnight—a garishly large good luck charm for the away game against Philadelphia to come. Howard takes Garnett’s Championship ring in collateral, to give us something else to worry about.
Somehow, this benign setup has already been incredibly tense, punctuated by Garnett shattering a display window Howard repeatedly warned him against leaning on. But it gets worse pretty quick as it’s revealed just how many already-broken Seder plates Howard is still trying to balance.
Turns out, he’s a gambling addict who’s deep in debt with at least a couple people he shouldn’t be screwing with. To make matters worse, he’s also been screwing (with) his hot young employee, and he keeps putting off giving his three kids the reveal that he and wife Dinah (Idina Menzel) are getting divorced. Like the bejeweled Furby, it looks a brilliantly costly mess. And like a normal Furby, once its motor gets going, it sure is a stressful nightmare.
It’s no secret that Sandler’s best work never comes when he’s trying to be an everyman who seemingly doesn’t own full-length pants. But it’s genuinely remarkable just how good he is in Uncut Gems. Like with Pattinson in Good Time, Sandler manages to make you kind of root for his poorly-dressed shit-head who’s only out for himself—no matter how gross he may act toward everyone else (and especially women). Sitting behind a desk in a poorly-fit blue suit, shouting at people on a landline, his performance has echoes of Punch-Drunk Love but exceeds that character’s resonance with how weirdly perfect Sandler is for this part. Shouty and big but shackled to earnest reality, Howard is the proof that in terms of “NYC niche jobs no one thinks about anyone actually doing,” Sandler sure makes a hell of a lot better jewelry guy than he does a cobbler. Also: Garnett is almost certainly the better basketball superstar actor than either LeBron James or the guy from Space Jam. But the secondary star of this show may actually be the subtle brilliance of the cinematography.
The Safdie’s work has a quality of looking largely unlit, and that makes it deceptively look un-shot. Uncut Gems proves that untrue with a remarkable arsenal of shots that, goddamn them, somehow make this thing even more stressful than it already is. Even in images that seem like half-assed cinéma vérité, somehow they sneak in tension through behind-the-back shots, reflections, and false shadows that tease even more issues than Howard even faces. No one pitching a film as a “gritty thriller” should stop before they’ve seen what a wonderful chore this is.
With Uncut Gems, the Safdies have unmistakably made another masterwork in in-your-face high tension and a New York City crime scene scarcely on the big screen. While every other filmmaker is going for the low-key glamour of Scorsese’s Goodfellas and Wolf of Wall Street—even as Scorsese has explicitly made the point to not glamorize that lifestyle because it falls apart—Josh and Benny Safdie have again shown a grosser, more modern underbelly no doubt informed by their being Queens-Manhattan natives in their 30s. The wretched lifestyles they portray of course also inevitably fall apart, but they never even start with it working out. So we’re lucky their messy masterpieces’ gambles continue to pay off.
Grade: A-
Uncut Gems
Director: Ben Safdie, Josh Safdie
Studio: A24
Runtime: 134 minutes
Rating: R
Cast: Adam Sandler, Kevin Garnett, Eric Bogosian, Idina Menzel, Lakeith Stanfield, Julia Fox
