It’s Hard To Make A Good Movie About Addiction
But ‘Uncut Gems’ wrecks me every time I watch it
I could write 10,000 words about Uncut Gems. I’m still shocked it didn’t earn one Oscar nomination because it’s an absolute masterpiece. You can hold this movie up to the light like the precious stones it’s named for and see different colors and dimensions every time.
So instead I’m going to write 1000 or so words about why Uncut Gems wrecked me all over again after rewatching it last night. The end of that movie is a real trap door.
I really didn’t expect to love a movie starring Adam Sandler as a New York City jeweler and gambling addict. I don’t want to give away the plot but we get to watch Sandler’s motor-mouthed character, Howard Ratner, experience the very best, and very worst, day of his life.
I have never been a fan of Sandler’s adolescent comedies or his few attempts at treacly drama: he’s a performer who wants to be loved a little too much. But in Uncut Gems, he bravely uses all of his man-child charisma to play a faithless, selfish wannabe conman who is falling apart. Sandler allows himself to be unlikable. It’s a brilliantly vulnerable performance in a pulse-pounding crime flick directed by Joshua and Benjamin Safdie, the Coen Brothers of Queens.
