BEST OF 2019: Adam Sandler and the Safdie Chaos in UNCUT GEMS
Years from now, they will admit they made a mistake. Even those who recognized a superior performance, but still failed to vote for Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems — these Academy members are going to wake up one morning and say to themselves… What the hell was I thinking? Howard Ratner may have come from the minds of writer-directors Josh and Benny Safdie, but he is actualized by Sandler, brought to life by a very specific electric current that only our greatest thespians or comics truly understand.
Sandler has shown his acting chops before (particularly in films like Funny People and an all-time personal favorite, Punch-Drunk Love), but the way he commits to this character reminds me of the way he would commit to more cartoonish SNL creations like Opera Man. This commitment to bold character creation, however, is his most impressive work to date because Howard is a more realized, uglier engine; he completely inhabits Howard Ratner, disappearing into our antihero with affected speech, a hunched over jaunt, and undeniable swarm. Sandler has always been a likable personality, but here he embraces the character’s narrow-minded selfishness, his brazenly foolish adrenaline junkie choices, his inherent foulness (there’s a scene where he pleas to his soon-to-be ex-wife to give him and their marriage another shot and you can tell she just wants to take a shower having heard him out).
Sandler carries the film in a way that he’s rarely needed to carry one before. He’s usually surrounded himself with comedic talents to bounce off of as he cruises from one end of the narrative to the other. Even in Punch-Drunk Love, Barry spends most of the time as a passive observer and we feel the increasing claustrophobia from the demands of the forces around him — his coworkers, his sisters, his social anxieties and the blowback of his mistakes. And just as Sandler the actor turns blue from holding his breath amid these mounting tensions he prays will go away, conversely he’s allowed to exhale in response to the grace granted by Emily Watson’s near-alien, unconditional kindness and understanding.
In Uncut Gems, however, Sandler seemingly bounces off of no one. Howard is a shark; always swimming, always moving around or through a cast of colorful characters of whom — once having served their purpose — he has little patience. The world around him, the physics of the real world, the reality of consequence, the superstitions of fate… they have no meaning; they dictate nothing to Howard. He does not recognize them. He can’t, for Howard is operating on the quantum realm. Where we, the audience, can see the walls closing in on him, exit doors disappearing by the second, Howard sees a metaphysical entanglement between his will and his well-being. If he can will it into existence, an escape hatch will appear and therefore his body will be safe. Only it isn’t enough for Howard to will himself an escape hatch. No. The escape hatch must also come with a pot of gold on the other side.
Uncut Gems isn’t going to be for everyone. It’s a very loud movie. The score by Daniel Lopatine is blaring, unpredictable and cosmic. Multiple scenes contain multiple characters shouting over each other. This is controlled chaos. In a weird way, the Safdies execution reminds me of the way Robert Altman worked with his actors, if Altman were a raver on ecstasy, equipped with buckets of cocaine and a serious shortage of joints.
This is also the best “Face Movie” since Black Mass. The Safdies cast a ton of non-actors in pivotal roles and it pays off in multiple ways. There’s some great faces among these first-time actors. For example: Keith Williams Richards and Tommy Kominik, as Phil and Nico, two hired “collectors” who look like the sort of guys who — at one time or another — have probably dug a six-foot-deep ditch at 3 AM. Richards is especially great, simultaneously playing a foil for Sandler while maintaining his status as Howard’s deadliest adversary.
Then there’s Wayne Diamond, the real-life Garment District legend who plays a key role in the film’s last act. Looking at him, you’d think the costume designer and makeup artist shared maybe one too many joints and just took things way too far, but with Diamond what you see in the movie is pretty much what you get in real life. As someone in the movie notes, he looks like something out of a cartoon.
Kevin Garnett acquits himself just fine, especially effective in a scene where he questions Howard about the origins of the black opal he wishes to purchase. The way the Safdies utilize his and the Celtic’s 2012 season is as clever as it is suspenseful.
Finally, there’s Julia Fox as Howard’s mistress (also named Julia). She is pitch-perfect in the role of a damaged, needy woman desperate to care for an equally damaged man who often mistreats her. Fox is more than a disposable fist-in-drooling-mouth sexpot, however, she is surprisingly capable and damn-near heroic by the end. She is one of the few characters in the film who earns the audience’s trust and goodwill.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention some of the more recognizable faces in the film like Lakeith Stanfield, who injects a healthy dose of tension into the film as Howard’s menacing and utterly unpredictable business partner. Finally, there’s the great Eric Bogosian, who does remarkable work in this film with his eyes (if there was an Academy Award for Best Eye Work, he’d be the category’s frontrunner). He’s the film’s heavy but he’s not the anonymous baddie who just wants to get paid. This is a real character with some subtle layers better experienced than written about in this post.
The Safdie brothers have created something extraordinary here. It’s a heart-pounding, near-operatic experience. Their flawless employment of tension is unique. Tarantino is a master of building up a scene to an intense boil. But scenes in Uncut Gems, like their previous film, Good Time, seem to explode with tension from the very outset.
What they do is a sort of subversive version of what Hitchcock used to do, which was giving the audience information the main characters were not yet aware of. The relationship the audience then had with the characters made you fear for them. The irony here is the Safdies give the audience the information — and they try to give it to their characters too — but Howard is so full of hubris and such a degenerate, that he ignores it. And so his very nature becomes the film’s greatest source of tension (Howard reminds me of Al Pacino’s Jimmy Hoffa in The Irishman, one of the year’s other great characters and performances). Because likable or not, highly flawed or not, Sandler somehow makes us root for Howard despite his transgressions, sins and degeneracy. That’s no easy feat and few actors could pull something like that off.
Uncut Gems is a sure-fire classic that will stand the test of time.
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