Analysing the suffocating tension of Safdie Brothers' Uncut Gems (2019)

 UNCUT GEMS

by 

Safdie Brothers

After their highly impressive indie flick 'Good Time' back in 2017 starring Robert Pattinson, the Safdie brothers came up with 'Uncut Gems', featuring well-established actor like Adam Sandler (who is in exceptional form), rising star like Lakeith Stanfield, pop sensation The Weeknd, and former basketball player Kevin Garnett in a thriller like crime-drama-black comedy set in New York City, that blends reality into fiction to create a unique cinematic experience.

Howard, a "crazy ass jew" played astoundingly well by Adam Sandler, is a self-absorbed, hyperbolising, compulsively lying crook (jeweler by profession) and a gambling addict with a very questionable sense of overconfidence and not a trace of loyalty or self-worth who keeps letting the people around him down, perpetually. I can not understand if he is in denial the whole time or strongly believes that the universe is going to miraculously turn around for his sake. What Howard must do and what he does are the two ends of a spectrum. For instance, at a point in the film when he owes almost a million dollars of debt to some people, who threaten him with his life, he bets on a game where the odds are against him, borrowing the money for it from two different parties with the same collateral. Understand what we are dealing with here? At any given point in time, there are a million overlapping thoughts passing through his mind, which are as mysterious as his opal, and even more problems surrounding him, but it is what he chooses to prioritize that makes the film what it is. It is hard to understand this man and much harder to stop rooting for him even though we despise him. And this character is one of the strong reasons why "Uncut Gems" becomes so engaging, stressful, and absorbing. He is an anti-hero, who serves as a shockingly exceptional subject for a character study. The film gets the basics right. Howard, obviously, is the main character: the one who makes things happen, not a passive bystander. We have talked about the way he does things and there is no better way to write a compelling drama than to have a protagonist as flawed and messy.  

This performance is well complemented by Lakeith Stanfield and newcomer Julia Fox, who have put up a flawless act and were equally well fleshed and developed as the main character even though the former does not share the same screen time as the latter.

The overlapping & contrasting dialogue featured in this tight work of writing is just too good and works unbelievably well. There is a kind of disconnect that keeps irking us throughout. The stakes keep getting higher and higher, things never go as planned, and Howard tackles them with a much incompetent move only to make things worse. There are either people following him or he is running away from them throughout the runtime of the film and the way these moments are composed and edited is brilliant. The Safdie brothers must be credited for their achievement in writing and executing the film, it has a great deal of "kinetic energy", always moving and keeps us running with it. With uncomfortable close-ups and handheld camera movement the cinematography of the film also plays a huge role in creating and holding the tension. Shot on 35mm film stock using an anamorphic lens, the look of the film is aptly grainy, highly distorted, and has a dreamy sense of mystery. We are always closer to the action than we would normally like. While the atmospheric & almost psychedelic synth music background score works quite well too, it is extremely effective in "exasperating" the mood which is already suffocatingly tense. And using real people and intertwining real-life incidences with the fictional script makes it more believable and resultantly more affecting.

With 'Uncut Gems' the Safdie brothers have established themselves and assured people of how exciting a prospect they are. This is a film that is an uncontrollable force made by the directors with unquestionable control over and fluency in the cinematic language. This a shocking and unsettling film that is highly entertaining at the same time. This is the kind of cinema I love to watch, I was sucked into its world, was intrigued by it, really cared about the consequences, and never saw the end coming. Take a deep breath before watching, it left me gasping.