Uncut Gems

Sometimes, directors synthesize their role models into their own unique style, and sometimes, they so slavishly adhere to their idols that they never develop their own voice. JJ Abrams desperately wants to be Spielberg but can’t. Brian De Palma had a fascination for a while trying to be Hitchcock and came off as a shallow copy. And then we have the Safdies, who, with Uncut Gems, desperately want to be Scorsese. I’m no fan of Scorses, as a person or as a director. I find his exaltation of criminals as American folk heroes to be tasteless and gross. I find his style melodramatic and leaden. But I cannot deny his movies have a certain style, albeit one that does not speak to me. With Uncut Gems, the Safdie brothers cling to that style like a life preserver in the ocean. The only problem is that nothing about their movie had the style or panache of Scorsese. Take the story, or lack thereof. Adam Sandler’s Howard Ratman is a jeweler and a gambler, and he’s in hock all over town. He’s always trying to land the big score. That’s it. That’s the story. There is no arc to his journey, no forward momentum. He’s a fast-talking lowlife who thinks he’s big time, he cheats on his wife and it’s no secret (the only secret is what his mistress sees in him), and he always puts himself out on a limb and is surprised when it breaks. He’s a schmuck to everyone around him. He’s unlikeable in every way. And the movie is built around him and his foibles. The performances are as abrasive as the characters, because they’re all loud. There is so much screaming in this movie. I wanted to book a trip to a monastery after this to remember the sound of silence. Sandler screams. Idina Menzel (his wife) screams. His mistress, played by Julia Fox, screams. His business partners scream. This movie is a constant boxing of the ears with loud, obnoxious people, swearing constantly and being unpleasant to each other. And that’s all the character traits anybody has. There’s no nuance, no shading. Everyone in The Wolf Of Wall Street was terrible, but they were also world class thieves and swindlers and crooks. These people are just terrible people for the sake of it. It’s noise for the sake of noise. And I don’t know where the praise for Sandler’s performance comes from, because what I saw was wooden and awkward and divorced from reality. Nobody here is trying to do anything but be the last person you’d ever want to be near. The direction here seems non-existent, just letting everyone be as awful as they want to be. I did not enjoy this. I was expecting a deep character study of a man who was his own worst enemy, and instead I got a shallow, repetitive treadmill that made him into a one-dimensional clown and somehow the hero of a story with no movement and no destination.