SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND
Yes, Adam Sandler is antic and aggro and utterly committed as the diamond cluster hustler at the centre of Josh and Benny Safdie’s Uncut Gems. And yes, playing such an unapologetically mercenary, grifting, morally bankrupt character as his Howard Ratner in that film has inevitably been framed as a “departure” for Sandler. The Safdies, it should be said, are a different breed from Sandler’s usual house directors, your Frank Coracis and your Dennis Dugans and your Steven Brills. They came up through the New York independent filmmaking ranks, making films about irresponsible divorced parents (Daddy Longlegs), teenaged heroin addicts (Heaven Knows What) and outer-borough small-time crooks (Good Time), speed-of-thought movies that follow flustered characters improvising in response to shifting circumstances, the brothers’ frantic subject matter matched to an often abrasive or adrenal style. Along with this, the boutique A24 imprimatur and Martin Scorsese EP credit attach more than the usual amount of cultural capital to Uncut Gems.
What this means is that Uncut Gems will garner reviews praising Sandler and, very likely, bemoaning the fact that he works so often beneath his talents. Such has been the case ever since the first Serious Sandler outing, Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2002 Punch-Drunk Love, in
