Sandler reason enough to see stressful new Safdie brothers’ picture
“You are the most annoying person I have ever met,” Howard Ratner’s soon-to-be ex-wife Dinah (Idina Menzel) tells him midway through Benny and Josh Safdie’s new film Uncut Gems. By that point, you’ll be bound to agree with her. As played by Adam Sandler in a career defining performance, Howard is not exactly pleasant to spend time with. The film, too, can be equally unpleasant: it’s a frenetic, exhausting experience that may leave you emotionally spent. But Sandler is absolutely riveting, and, annoying as Howard may be, he’s a character unlike any we’ve seen before. Sandler’s brilliant portrayal of him is reason alone to give this frenzied picture a chance.
The Safdie brothers, who earned raves for 2017’s Good Time, here again team with co-writer Ronald Bronstein to deliver another tense, high-pressure drama with darkly comedic overtones. If you have a hard time watching someone make bad decision after bad decision, this film is not for you. Sandler’s Howard is New York City jeweler whose gambling problem and penchant for high-risk bets have put himself, his livelihood, and his family in jeopardy. Just when you think you can breathe easy after he’s won one bet, he’s quickly on to another, far riskier one, and all you can do is shake your head and squirm in disbelief.
The film’s plot centers around a rare, valuable black opal that Howard, after years of effort, has finally acquired from an Ethiopian mine (the picture’s prologue shows the dangers of mining such gems). Howard has arranged to sell the gem at a high-end auction house, but things go awry after Howard lends the opal to Boston Celtics basketball star Kevin Garnett (playing himself) for good luck. Garnett wants to keep the stone through the Celtics championship game with Philadelphia (the film’s action takes place in 2012), putting Howard in a bind. With debts and obligations mounting and angry loan sharks hot on his trail, Howard’s stress level reaches epic proportions. Family responsibilities, constant arguments with his wife (Menzel) and mistress (Julia Fox, excellent), and the weight of increasingly huge and precarious bets only add to Howard’s – and our – sense of impending doom.
What Sandler does so well here is show Howard constantly trying to finesse his way through all these seemingly impossible situations. Fast-talking and quick to anger, Howard is one of those irritating types who somehow think everything will – and should – turn out okay for him, never mind the fact that most of the perilous situations in which he finds himself are totally of his own making. When Howard finally cracks – in a beautifully acted scene with Fox in which he lets his guard down and his tension dissolves into raw and desperate emotion – it’s an inspired, masterful, and truly human piece of acting. We see here just how much Sandler is capable of when he’s cast in the right role, with directors who know how to use him.
The picture also gives us an insider look into a part of New York that we rarely see depicted on screen: the insular, fast-paced, and big money world of the Diamond District, with its competing jewelers, questionable middle men (LaKeith Stanfield’s Demany is the one who brings Garnett to Howard), and profit-seeking pawn shops and betting parlors. Everyone here is out for himself, everyone is looking for a score, and no one is willing to forgive late payments or unpaid debts. If nothing else, this picture may cure you of any fantasies of big wins and easy riches, and actually make you thankful your money is safe in a .09% savings account.
The supporting cast is uniformly excellent as well. Menzel does especially nice work portraying a woman at the end of her rope with her gambling, cheating husband. A scene in which she gives Howard a cruel dressing down at her family’s Passover Seder will take you aback with its complete lack of empathy. Judd Hirsch, as Gooey, Howard’s father-in-law, who reluctantly gets drawn into Howard’s money schemes, makes us viscerally feel Gooey’s frustration and dismay. Eric Bogosian is icy cold as the leader of the loan sharks to whom Howard is indebted, never mind that he also happens to be Howard’s brother-in-law.
And award-winning cinematographer Darius Khondji does some arty and innovative camera work, as certain close-ups morph elegantly into something else entirely, particularly at the film’s end. There’s enough here, then, to recommend the picture, but just keep in mind that its central character is aggravating, and the premise and execution are stressful (you’ll need to have patience with characters who interrupt and talk over each other constantly). If you can tolerate that, though, you’ll be rewarded with one of the year’s finest performances.
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Uncut Gems opens today at Bay Area theaters.
