Movie Review by William Smith
It’s nice to be an Adam Sandler fan again.
I haven’t said that since seeing “Punch Drunk Love” at an Iowa City theater 17 years ago. I was in college, taking advantage of an indie movie scene unavailable in Burlington at the time.
Sandler’s latest drama is “Uncut Gems” (2019), which played Wednesday evening and again tonight at the Westland Mall Theater, and it’s as good as everyone says it is.
Halfway through the film, I wasn’t so confident. The first hour or so is an impressive take on Martin Scorsese’s “Mean Streets” with a fascinating Jewish twist. If that’s all “Uncut Gems” was going to be, I was plenty satisfied if not exactly overwhelmed.
But then directors Josh and Benny Safdie subvert those expectations for the finale, transforming a dour portrait of selfish loser into an uplifting character study of a talented hustler who’s only enjoying life when he’s on the grift.
Howard Ratner (Sandler) embodies both, ruled entirely by a lifelong gambling addiction. He runs a jewelry store in New York’s Diamond District and has a reputation for gambling the money he owes instead of paying it back. When he does win, the money goes right back into another basketball bet.
“I’m exhausted,” Ratner says to his girlfriend early in the film. He also has a wife and two kids that keep him busy.
Ratner’s exhaustion comes across not only in Sandler’s much-praised performance but in the cinematography. The camera, always moving, seemingly hovers just a few feet from Sandler’s face most of the time, invoking claustrophobia while maintaining a frantic forward momentum.
There’s always someone in Ratner’s face getting ready to punch him, and it’s easy to see why. Nearly every word he utters is a lie, peppered with enough selective truth to keep everyone off tilt. Most everyone knows he’s full of it and he knows that they know.
Where “Uncut Gems” really breaks from the genre is in the inverse portrayal of Ratner. He’s impossible to get a read on in the first half of the film, slipping through conversations with distractions and falsehoods that distort his personality into a haze. I didn’t know who he was, or if he was even worth knowing.
That ambiguity provides a slow burn into the second half of the film — particularly the last half hour — where Ratner finally feels like a con artist capable of conning someone. I found myself rooting for a guy I didn’t care for just an hour earlier, elated to finally see passion return to his eyes.
It’s a hell of a payoff. Suddenly, “Uncut Gems” became my favorite film of 2019.