Uncut Gems (2019)

CINEMA PREMIERE: Win! That’s the motto of Howard, a New York jeweller. But pride comes before a fall. Adam Sandler shines in the best performance of his career.

Manhattan’s Diamond District: Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler), a jeweller deep in debt, finally sees a way out of his precarious situation: a rare black opal from Africa falls into his hands, and he manages to get basketball legend Kevin Garnett interested in it. But Garnett is taking his time over the financial side of things, and that’s precisely what Howard doesn’t have. He’s left without the stone and without the money, but with the whole of New York hot on his heels.

With his pulse constantly at a hundred and eighty and a massive ego, Adam Sandler, directed by the Safdie brothers, creates a unique and highly compelling character in Howard Ratner. And even though the Oscar gold for the role of the true-blue New Yorker notoriously failed to materialise, it established Sandler beyond his reputation as a comedian as an actor with range. For the Safdie brothers, too, this marked a major turning point in their careers, as with UNCUT GEMS they had created an unforgettable and nerve-wracking odyssey: loan sharks, hitmen, a spiteful wife, mistresses and gemstones as lucky charms during the Boston Celtics’ play-offs. In short, a story brimming with delusions of grandeur, the sort that could only have emerged at the end of the 2010s.