The Safdie brothers are not the best-known directors that Adam Sandler has taken a serious turn for, but they might be after Uncut Gems, their third feature. First going quirky in Paul Thomas Anderson’s excellent Wes Anderson impression Punch Drunk Love, then playing artsy in Noah Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories, Sandler as a serious (read: non-comedic) actor has been fully, if not frequently, vetted. And the Safdie brothers’ panic-attack directing style fits Sandler like a bespoke glove, one that is equally hideous and captivating.
The titular uncut gem is a fist-sized hunk of rock, mottled with iridescent nebulas of black opal that jeweler Howard Ratner (Sandler) imported from the mines of Ethiopia. It is the central MacGuffin around which this tornado of a film swirls. Opening at the desert mines, the white title card recalls classic adventure movies, and as the camera zooms in on the sparkling stones, and the fascinating, lilting score of synthesizers and flutes builds (the film owes much of its wired intensity to the superb score and sound design), the stone becomes a universe, and the universe becomes . . . the inside of Howard’s colon, and you realize there’s something a bit more here than just a crime thriller.
From there, the roller coaster’s nose tilts, and it’s a screaming-fast descent to the end. Howard somehow lends the stone to Boston Celtics superstar Kevin Garnett (excellent, as himself) who thinks the opals give him magical basketball powers. Howard is avoiding debt collectors while pawning off collateral to make outrageous bets on the Celtics (he’s a Knicks fan), while trying to get the stone back from Garnett so it can go to auction, while also dealing with his children, his all-but separated wife, his mistress and more collectors. It almost plays like a heist movie, each success being met with another setback. How is he gonna get out of this? Should he get out of this? Howard is, by all definitions, not a good guy, but as the film closes, the camera moves through the microscopic, incandescent opal, and the stone becomes a universe again, it doesn’t really matter, because Sandler and the Safdie brothers have made something rough and real.
The name Martin Scorsese shows up in the opening with an apt executive producer credit. Uncut Gems harkens back to Scorsese’s early meditations on anti-morality set against the grimy backdrop of his favorite diamond in the rough: NYC.
Uncut Gems’ New York (set in 2012) is just as visceral; you can practically smell the hair grease, the cheap cologne and the sweat. It’s like it comes with the accent, the gold jewelry and the F-bombs spouted with the ease and frequency of breathing. The Safdies put you right up close to all of this, rub your nose in it with kinetic, claustrophobic shots—at the club, in the jewelers, at the pawn shop—and they don’t let you go. There’s beauty in this dirt, and they want you to see it.
