dollars – has the charisma to carry it off. He scrambles for control, and the
second he has it he gambles it all away. A remarkable sense of pathos is
evoked watching him bumble through life, locked in the trunk of his own
car or cracking wise at the seder with his extended family. You root for
him, even when he gets knocked down by the hired goons he owes money
to. You want Howard to catch the break he’s been chasing for what seems
like his whole life.But he is searching for a high that only ever lasts for a few seconds, and
respite in Uncut Gems only comes in feverish, stolen gulps. A scene in a
UV-lit nightclub sees Howard look on while The Weeknd performs ‘The
Morning ’ – a rare moment of near-stillness amid the carnage. “All that
money / the money is the motive,” the singer croons, speaking directly to
the obsession threatening to derail our wiley protagonist’s life once and
for all. Tension comes in the most remarkable of places: watching NBA
All-Star Kevin Garnett play basketball becomes as great a feat of anxiety-
inducing cinema as any high-stakes heist. In a film so rich with the iconography of Jewish identity and all-American
decadence, it’s easy to get lost in the details; in the bedazzled Furbies,
the mint green and baby pink walls of Howard’s office, the gold Mezuzah
pendant he wears around his neck. But Uncut Gems is a sleight of hand
trick, ready to land all its trumps while you’re still fumbling for the Queen of
Hearts. This might be more polished than the Safdies’ past work thanks to
Darius Khondji’s svelte cinematography and Lopatin’s ambitious, turbulent
score, but it’s no less real or bruising on impact.Over the course of five fiction films, the Safdie brothers have created a
series of anarchic but always deeply compassionate snapshots of human rot
across the five boroughs of New York, while simultaneously demonstrating
their unmistakable love and affection for the city that raised them.
They continue to reckon with the idea of how self-interest shapes a person’s
every move while maintaining a neurotic sense of humour, and their stories
are laden with self-induced suffering that never feels mawkish. Their
blunt perceptiveness and flair for corralling entropy onto cinema screens,
allied with a truly unforgettable Sandler performance, mark Uncut Gems
as not only a ludicrous achievement in technical finesse, but unrelenting
creativity as well. It’s stylish and sad and funny and bleak and a thousand
other things. But most of all, it’s a pure hit of Sandler and Safdie.
HANNAH WOODHEADANTICIPATION.
The culmination of all our wildest dreams.ENJOYMENT. The most absurd,
anxiety-inducing 134 minutes of your life.IN RETROSPECT. A devastating fever dream about the
consequences of chasing an ever-illusive high.010 LEAD REVIEW