Uncut Gems

Directors: Josh Safdie and Benny Safdie
Starring: Adam Sandler, Lakeith Stanfield, Julia Fox, Kevin Garnett, Idina Menzel, Eric Bogosian, Judd Hirsch, Keith Williams Richards, Jonathan Aranbayev, Noa Fisher, Abel Tesfaye, Mike Francesa
Running Time: 135 min.
Rating: R

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★)

In the Safdie brothers' crime thriller Uncut Gems, a new bar is set for unlikable, self-destructive protagonists, as Adam Sandler's jeweler and gambling addict Howard Ratner proves incapable of encountering any situation he can't make worse by lying, cheating, screaming, swearing or scamming. Whether it's his own family, celebrities or employees, they're all forced to just look on with annoyed exasperation at his antics, which demonstrate the lowest levels of self-control and human decency. It's nearly impossible to turn away from the wildly entertaining train wreck that is Howard's life, with its awfulness and unpredictability escalating with each passing scene, culminating an almost unbearably tense finale.

Heralded as the return of Sandler to what's increasingly become one of his rare "serious" roles, this dramatic departure really can't be listed alongside other his other excursions like Punch-Drunk Love and Reign Over Me, even as it surely will. The draw in those was seeing the actor dialed way down, while this feels more in line with his recognizable lunacy. But the huge exception this time is the unusually high quality of the Safdies' darkly comic material, which channels those qualities into dramatic strengths rather than exploiting them for cheap gags or toilet humor.

Reconciling the two Sandlers has always been a tricky proposition, both for fans, and possibly for him, as the disappointing box office receipts for his more challenging efforts have frequently found him crawling back to the familiar safety of mainstream low-brow comedies. You could say it's for the money, or maybe even the emotional exhaustion of putting himself out there only to find audiences just want the hits. That's why this feels like the ultimate compromise that should please both camps while successfully litigating the many facets of Sandler's onscreen persona. And yet, the picture remains extremely polarizing, so far out there in its delivery that it's as much an ordeal as an experience.

After a brief flashback to 2010 where a group of Ethiopian miners retrive a rare black opal stone in an African mine, we jump forward two years later to the KMH jewelry store in New York City's Diamond District, as owner Howard is struggling to pay off his gambling debts. Still owing $100,000 to loan shark brother-in-law Arno (Eric Bogosian), his relationship with estranged wife Dinah (Idina Menzel) has crumbled in the midst of his ongoing affair with jewelry store employee, Julia (Julia Fox). But when Howard's associate Demany (Lakeith Stanfield) brings Boston Celtics superstar Kevin Garnett (playing himself) into the store to shop, that rare African black opal arrives.

As Howard makes plans to put the special stone up for auction, Garnett becomes almost hypnotically captivated by the gem, insisting to hold on to it for good luck in his game before giving a reluctant Howard his 2008 Championship ring as collateral. But after pawning it to place a six-way parlay bet on Garnett's game performance, Howard's troubles really start, as Arno and his hired bodyguards are coming to collect. Discovering it may be more complicated than he thought to get the opal back from Garnett, Howard makes plans to place another huge bet that would turn his fortunes around. But with the clock rapidly ticking on his chaotic personal and professional life, it won't be easy.

While it isn't completely inaccurate to label to label this a dramatic crime thriller, there are plenty of laughs stemming from Howard's inability to read people and situations, almost obnoxiously bulldozing forward toward what he always believes will be certain success. He basically digs this huge hole for himself, inexplicably keeps digging in hopes of a turnaround, and ends up in a far worse position than he started in. The pattern repeats more than a few times, which is unsurprising given his gambling addiction, but Sandler keeps finding new ways to make it compulsively watchable with an unhinged performance that grips you right from the start and doesn't let go until the credits roll.

The jewelry store itself, with all its cramped chaos and malfunctioning security doors, feels like a powder keg primed to explode from all the nervous tension within, providing the perfect visual and atmospheric metaphor for the wheeling, dealing life of its owner. But fast-talking "Howie," with his schmoozing and empty promises, meets his match in Garnett, who's used to getting what he wants when he wants it. That's par the course for his celebrity clients, but the exception here being the value of this rare stone and Howard's obsession with leveraging it into a huge gambling opportunity destined to end badly just based on the number of people he's screwing over.

Seemingly everyone but Howard can sense his toxicity and uncontrollable temper, which sabotages every potential transaction, business or otherwise. You haven't seen anything until witnessing Howard attack a pre-fame The Weeknd in a club bathroom, trying to bribe his bookie, Gary (Mike Francesa) with a watch or manipulating his father (Judd Hirsch) to bid for him at an auction. If it's easy to believe that just the chance to appear alongside Garnett, The Weeknd and Francesa in a sports-related project was one of Sandler's main motivations for taking the part, we can at least take solace in the fact this is one of the more successful examples of outside celebrities being seamlessly incorporated into a film.

And in the case of Garnett, it's even better than that, with him adding a legitimacy that couldn't have come if they used a fictitious player or had another actor step in.  It just makes the proceedings feel real, especially when he goes toe-to-toe with Sandler in a handful of intense scenes. But the tragedy in Howard's story comes not from his interactions with sports figures and business associates like Lakeith Stanfield's wildly mercurial Demany, but his mistreatment of his estranged wife and kids and a stone-faced brother-in-law who's been burned by his relative so many times he's essentially had to resort to hiring hitmen to scare him into paying.

But what emotionally lands the hardest is his relationship with Julia, since it's the only aspect of his life where he doesn't appear to playing some kind of short con game. Julia Fox really gives a break-out performance as the feisty girlfriend who stands by him unconditionally, at points making us wonder if there really is more to this guy than weasely bluster, since their quieter moments is when he acts and appears most human, approaching something that almost nearly resembles likability. Of course, he manages to somehow mess that up too, leading to a scene where everything hits Howard at once, bloody and collapsing in ball of tears in his office chair being consoled by the only person left who cares. After all this guy's done, that Sandler can wring out empathy for this guy and have us rooting for his victory is a testament to how many gears he truly has as an actor, and a reminder how infrequently we've seen him display it.

That Sandler has the Safdies as directors sure helps, with them taking an unusually frenetic approach to this kind of material, with oddly effective choices that elevate both Sandler and the script. Between the breakneck editing pace and Daniel Lopatin's ambient, electronic score that seems to jarringly contrast with the picture's unnerving tone, there's really nothing quite like it. And it's capped with a literal and figurative buzzer beater of a finale that has Howard doubling down on his very worst tendencies, so optimistically smitten by his own hype that he can't see the many horrible ways his big bet can go wrong, this time with a participatory audience gathered for his self-destruction. That it bookends a film bizarre enough to open with the main character's colonoscopy should have been clue enough as to what we were getting into. But Sandler's unique take on this exhausting conman proves why each new dramatic role he tackles remains so highly anticipated. This is one of his best, even if it might be too stressful to watch again.