Uncut Gems (Safdies, 2019): Curzon Hoxton, 6pm
This is part of the Jewish Culture Month season at Curzon cinemas. Details here.
Time Out review:
Josh and Benny Safdie, the indie filmmaking brothers whose New York
City movies shudder with attitude, tell fast and grubby stories that
harken back to the 1970s, when Sidney Lumet ruled sets. Their vigor is
an instant rush: why creep a camera down a hallway when you can fling it
behind equally unhinged characters? In ‘Heaven Knows What’, the Safdies turned uptown heroin junkies into wild, unkempt angels. Then, in ‘Good
Time’, they gave Robert Pattinson all the confusion he could handle as a
Pacino-like Queens hustler out of his depth. There’s no nostalgia to
these films, no cuteness, only the mania of urban survival, improvised
on the fly with a side of trash talk. ‘Uncut Gems’, the Safdies’ electrifying and abrasive latest
drama, flirts with becoming a headache. (For some, it will feel like
more than flirting.) But the film gets closer than the brothers ever
have to developing a genuine affection for their various schemers, and
that makes all the difference. Tenaciously, it follows a week in the
2012 life of a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants Diamond District dealer,
Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler, channeling his obnoxiousness into something
magically right, even moving). You may be overwhelmed by the Safdies’s
spiky sound design – filled with yelling, sports betting, the jewelry
shop’s constantly buzzing security door and an overcaffeinated,
Tangerine Dream–like synth score – but Howard thrives in this chaos.
It’s his normal. Beyond his bling salesmanship, Howard dreams of a big score, which
arrives by messenger from Ethiopia: a gleaming chunk of opal-encrusted
rock which he hopes to auction off for a fortune. (It’s ‘real old-school
Middle-earth shit’, he tells the hypnotized NBA star Kevin Garnett,
playing himself with self-deprecating charm.) The various whereabouts of
this stone will become a plot spine for ‘Uncut Gems’, but
that’s just an excuse to ping-pong Howard between a kaleidoscopic
cross-section of sharply etched neurotics: pawnshop kibitzers, menacing
debt collectors (led by a spookily intense Eric Bogosian), a
semi-estranged wife (Idina Menzel, seeping fury from every pore) and a
brassy mistress, also his shop’s counter clerk, who may be falling in
love with him (Julia Fox, making a stellar debut). Gamblers at heart, the Safdies have a palpable love of gamesmanship,
of arguments pushed to the brink, verbal beatdowns and courtside
chatter. (Gifted cinematographer Darius Khondji, a master of
reflections, gives ‘Uncut Gems’ a sheen that
visually counterbalances.) Something else is going on here, too: a
lovably pronounced American Jewishness in terms of tone and touchstones,
from Billy Joel’s showbizzy ‘The Stranger’, heard during a car ride
back to Long Island, to a family’s Passover seder rife with marital
tensions and kids running around searching for the afikomen.
This was the environment in which the Safdies grew up; their film isn’t
merely an outstanding portrait of a charming fate-tempter who goes a
bit too far, but a kind of autobiography (as was their 2009
breakthrough, ‘Daddy Longlegs’). It’s made with so much
love, care and enthusiasm – plus no small amount of risk – you thrill to
think that they’re just getting started.
Joshua Rothkopf
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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