Uncut Gems: A Cinematic Colonoscopy (SPOILERS)
The Safdie Brothers’ Uncut Gems starts with a psychedelic trip through a black Opal, found in the mines of Ethopia and slowly morphs into the inside of Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler)’s clean colon, as he is having a colonoscopy. Oneohtrix Point Never (Daniel Lopatin)’s score kicks in from the first minute and sends us into a Vangelis-esque trip as it dominates the Dolby Atmos Surround Sound during the colonoscopy. This is the moment in which we see that Uncut Gems goes beyond what Josh and Benny Safdie made a name for themselves in Good Time and becomes true cinema.
*Big plot spoilers follow. Be warned.*
For 135 minutes, we follow the frenetic lifestyle of jewlery-store owner Howard Ratner who owes money from loanshark Arno (Eric Bogosian), his brother-in-law. Ratner receives the Opal he is going to auction for over a million dollars to pay off all of his debts, but NBA Superstar Kevin Garnett wants to “borrow” the Opal and keep it as he believes it has magic powers to make him play well and help the Boston Celtics win.
As weird as the plot of Uncut Gems sounds, wait until you see the movie. The Safdie Brothers make sure you haven’t seen anything like Uncut Gems, right from the very beginning with its opening in Ethiopia and travelling from the mines of Ethiopian Jews to New York City from the inside of an Opal through the inside of a colon. Poetic cinema, as the kinophiles say. The cinematography from Darius Khondji, from Frame 1 in Ethiopia to its last inside Ratner’s Jewlery store is sublime in every sense of the way. It’s the best looking film I’ve seen all year, with creative cinematography and visual effects that take you from one place to another seamlessly. Khondji’s cinematography, shot on 35mm film, is refined and dynamic. There are many shots that juxtapose the actors’ facial expressions (Bogosian’s Arno and Idina Menzel’s Dinah are the ones to watch as their facial expressions convey more than their verbal communications), all of which are brilliant. The cinematography and relentless editing from Ronald Bronstein and Benny Safdie couple Oneohtrix Point Never’s music brilliantly, as it is reminiscent, at times, of Giorgio Moroder and Vangelis. It’s the weirdest combination, but Lopatin has kept innovating since his inception, and continues to do so in movies. The score is non-predictive, due to its moog synthesizer exploring. Lopatin loves to explore with a syntheziser and, as such, mixes two legendary composers for a crime thriller that isn’t deserving of this score, but still is. It’s a thing to behold in theaters!
This decade, Adam Sandler has starred in DUD after DUD after DUD. Jack & Jill is THE WORST movie of the ENTIRE decade and all of his other wacky Happy Madison films have been equally garbage as J&J with the exception of the criminally underrated Pixels. It’s funny that the only genuinely GREAT movie Sandler did in this decade, before Uncut Gems, was working with Noah Baumbach for The Meyerowitz Stories. I’m glad to say that Adam Sandler gives a career-best performance as Howard Ratner. We follow him through the entirety of the runtime living his life in the most frenetic way possible, always on edge and never seems to want to take a break. Whenever you think Ratner’s life will go better or he finally will be able to take a break, it never happens. For example, once the Opal is estimated to be around 155,000 to 225,000, he asks his father-in-law, Gooey (Judd Hirsch) to bet more than what Garnett is betting, even if he doesn’t have the money, which results in Gooey obtaining the Opal. Once Howard *finally* gives the Opal to Garnett and the basketball player pays him, instead of giving the money to Arno, as he is in the store, decides to bet it on the Celtics’ basketball game. When he surprisingly wins, impressing Arno, you think that, finally, his life will be back on track and calm down as he is now able to pay off all of his debts, but gets shot in the head by one of Arno’s henchmen, Phil (Keith Williams Richards), who grew tired of Ratner’s antics, and dies. It’s the perfect send-off to Ratner’s life, the only way for Ratner for his life to be better is for him to die, as he lives in a neverending cycle of stress. Every sequence with Sandler is stressful, because he can’t shut his mouth or take a chill pill.
There are many sequences in which characters talk over one another which makes the viewing experience of Uncut Gems feel like a tight colonoscopy. But it’s that tightness that keeps you going until the bitter end credits where Gigi D’Agostino’s “L’ Amour Toujours” plays. Adam Sandler is electric, so is Kevin Garnett playing himself, Idina Menzel going away from the Elsas of the world to play a serious, dramatic, role for the first time and knocking out of the park, a fantastic Lakeith Stanfield as Demany who gives one of the best lines of the year (“Black jew power N****!”) and a slew of great cameos like John Amos, The Weeknd and Mike Francesa make Uncut Gems the movie event of the year and one of the best movies of the decade with a career-defining performance from Adam Sandler who may resurrect his career if he stops making garbage at Happy Madison. Long live SAFDIE!
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