Uncut Gems (2019)

(Netflix Streaming, September 2020) Every few years, Adam Sandler comes out of his rote torpor and delivers a dramatic performance for good directors that impresses even those who aren’t big fans of his. Uncut Gems is the latest of those too-rare performances, a quasi-hallucinatory, anxiety-inducing trip within the dangerous life of a Manhattan jeweller/gambler at a time when all sorts of crises are reaching a dramatic point. Written and directed by the Safdie Brothers, Uncut Gems is not a pretty film in any way—it’s not slick or glossy or comforting. Every nervous edit, every discordant musical cue, every trashy backdrop seems calculated to make the film even more unsettling. This is absolutely not safe or classically entertaining. But while I wouldn’t normally cheer on such movies (let alone one that seems to think that basketball is one of the most important things ever), even I have to admit that Uncut Gems work rather well, and that Sandler is surprisingly good in this very dramatic -some will even say tragic—role.