THE DIRECTORS SERIES

Notable Festivals: Telluride, Toronto

There’s an old adage taken to heart by any aspiring writer: “write what you know”. It’s simple. Succinct. It works. But I would argue it’s too simple— in an effort to reduce a sentiment down into an easily-digestible buzz-phrase, a crucial nuance has been lost that might otherwise have empowered the storyteller even more. I’d suggest an alternate phrase: “write the story that only you would tell”. A writer doesn’t have to have a 1-to-1 match between her lived experience and that of her fictional characters; indeed, most of us don’t exactly have the kind of dramatic experiences that make for riveting storytelling. But we all have distinctive facets: our individual experiences, our interests, obsessions, the families and communities we come from… that list is endless. The strategic picking and blending of those things can result in the unique quality that so many storytellers labor to achieve.

UNCUT GEMS, the 2019 feature film from directors Josh and Benny Safdie, is a sterling example of “writing the story that only you can tell”. It is not an autobiography by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a deeply personal story for the brothers— spun out of the peculiar alchemy of their Jewish upbringing, their passionate love for professional basketball, and the larger-than-life experiences of their father during his time as a jewelry salesman and runner in Manhattan’s world-famous diamond district (1). It is easily the most definitive film in the brothers’ entire body of work, the result of a decade of brainstorming and development, and of endless writing and rewriting (2). All told, the brothers generated 168 distinct drafts of the screenplay before going to production (2). The success of UNCUT GEMS is also a great example of the value in artistic conviction; after the incandescent reception of 2017’s GOOD TIME, the brothers received no shortage of calls from studio executives seeking to co-opt their exhilarating aesthetic to big-budget superhero movies and other IP-focused fare. No doubt the prospective paydays and stratospheric career boosts were tempting, but the brothers knew what they really wanted to do. UNCUT GEMS was the white whale they’d been obsessively pursuing as early as 2012, when they brazenly approached Adam Sandler’s representatives with an offer to star— only for the gatekeepers to effectively brush them away without so much as looking at the material (2).

In so many ways, UNCUT GEMS represents the apex of everything the Safdies had been building over the past decade. The suggestion that they may be the heirs apparent to Martin Scorsese’s unique brand of gritty New York stories would be nearly undeniable when Scorsese himself joined the project as an Executive Producer. While he wasn’t necessarily active in the film’s making, the attachment of his name effectively acts as an affirmation and endorsement of the Safdies’ promise. The actual work of carrying out their vision falls to another high-profile producer, Scott Rudin, in addition to the executives at A24. Despite these big names — any one of which might have bent UNCUT GEMS’ distinct voice to their own whims — the Safdies cleave close to their longtime Elara and Red Bucket Collective collaborators from the microbudget days. This includes producing partners Oscar Boyson and Sebastian Bear-McClard, the former seemingly stepping away from day-to-day collaborations with his credit here as an Executive Producer, and the latter quite likely seeing his final collaboration with the Safdies before his unceremonious firing from Elara in the wake of accusations of alleged sex crimes during the making of GOOD TIME. The final shooting script would also bear Ronald Bronstein’s name alongside Josh and Benny’s, further solidifying the unique creative partnership that began with DADDY LONGLEGS. The end result is a film that feels true to the uncompromising voice of their previous films, refusing to cave to the pressures of larger-scale filmmaking and its attendant audience considerations.

After a brief prologue set in an Ethiopian diamond mine in 2010, UNCUT GEMS drops the audience into the concrete jungle of Manhattan circa 2012. Well, actually, it drops us right into the winding colon of one Howard Ratner, a successful (if small-time) jewelry merchant based out of a flashy windowless store tucked away in New York’s diamond district. Though the camera eventually pulls away to reveal the character asleep mid-colonoscopy, we never quite leave this startling level of intimacy with Howard’s perspective. The story’s tone is a reflection of his mental state; simultaneously distracted and obsessed, drenched in flop sweat, and possessed of a profound anxiety that can only be medicated with material and carnal pleasures. Howard is convinced he’s a winner when everything else says otherwise— he’s got a mistress half his age who sees him like a God, sure, but his marriage and family life are in shambles, and his increasingly-evident gambling addiction has him strapped to a rocket and pointed directly at a brick wall of financial ruin. 

Easily one of the most outrageous protagonists to come out of contemporary American cinema in a long time, the character of Howard Ratner finds comedy icon Adam Sandler nearly disappear underneath a set of fake teeth, myriad prosthetic moles, and a gaudy sartorial sensibility. There is an undeniable suggestion of Jewish stereotypes inherent to the character as presented, and that is by design: as members of the Jewish faith themselves, the Safdies intended to amplify Howard’s Jewishness as if it were some kind of superpower (3). If Judaism is the source of his super strength, however, then Howard’s outsized ego is his Kryptonite; all of which is to say that the Safdies mean to contextualize Howard’s character journey through the Jewish idea of “learning through suffering” (13). Sandler gives everything he has to the role, willingly going to dark places he’s never been to before as an actor, and offering up an idiosyncratic vulnerability that’s miles away from the howling buffoons that dominate his body of work. Though his awards circuit ambitions are nakedly transparent, his earnestness to excel is also charming.

The plot of UNCUT GEMS revolves around the titular stone— a rare chunk of unprocessed opal sent directly from an Ethiopian mine and supposedly valued at one million dollars. Howard buys the iridescent treasure online for a quarter of that, and is eagerly looking forward to a payday that’ll erase his debts and put him on easy street. Keeping in line with the singular perspective the Safdies have established, everyone in Howard’s orbit is defined in relation to this stone. Much like Howard himself, his girlfriend/employee Julia De Fiore is a well-meaning hustler sabotaged by her own ego and self-interest. Newcomer Julia Fox delivers a breakout performance, imbuing her trash-glam character with a natural sweetness and naivete that earns a lot of audience goodwill— even when she’s unintentionally sabotaging Howard, or riding a vanishingly thin line between loyalty and infidelity. Broadway star Idina Menzel plays Howard’s estranged, way-out-of-his-league wife, Dinah. If she had been Catholic, she might have been eligible for the sainthood given the divine amount of patience she must have had to put up with Howard’s shenanigans for as long as she has. That said, she’s certainly no angel; mere fairness is the extent to which she treats the man with whom she’s currently navigating a divorce. She’s standoffish, and clearly contemptuous of her husband’s presence. Menzel pulls off this tricky balancing act, continuously garnering our sympathies when she could easily come across as the nagging shrew. Even when she’s expressing abject disgust at the notion of Howard ever touching her again, her contempt is colored by the sheer exhaustion of trying to make their marriage work over the years.

UNCUT GEMS’ supporting cast continues the Safdie tradition of mixing professionals and unknowns to exhilarating effect. Established character actor Eric Bogosian delivers an unsettling performance as Arno, Howard’s brother-in-law and a ruthless loan shark who isn’t about to let a little thing like family get in the way of what he’s owed. If he provokes a psychological fear in the audience, then his lackey Phil compels a much more visceral and physical one. A former first responder who came to acting much later in life, Keith William Richards is absolutely terrifying as Arno’s pitbull; spittle flying, veins bulging, trigger finger twitching, Phil is a vengeful force in complete disregard of the law. Lakeith Stanfield, currently enjoying a big moment in his career, excels as the slippery Demany, an unofficial colleague of Howard’s who takes a commission off the big spenders he brings into the store. He’s reliable in terms of the business he generates for Howard, but he’s ultimately beholden to the erratic whims of the VIPs whose social circles he operates in. None are more idiosyncratic than Celtics superstar Kevin Garnett, playing a thinly-fictionalized version himself with unexpected nuance. He drives much of the story in his obsession with Howard’s opal, and Garnett gamely indulges in a veneer of ego and vanity to justify the sense of entitlement that causes Howard so much anguish. Garnett’s casting was a whole process with surprising ramifications for the final product; the Safdies initially wrote the film with Kobe Bryant in mind, but moved on when Bryant expressed an interest on the condition that he would direct (4). After considering a number of other players — a search limited by the fact that the Safdies would have to contend with shooting against an active NBA season (5) — the brothers ultimately landed on the retired Garnett. Since Garnett would have to be an active player in the context of the film, his casting immediately turned UNCUT GEMS into a period piece. The brothers needed to find a year that coincided with a season where Garnett’s athletic performance matched the story developments, ultimately settling on the year 2012.

That same year saw R&B megastar The Weeknd first rise to prominence, which UNCUT GEMS reflects with his inclusion in the story. Given far more than a glorified cameo as himself, the singer (real name Abel Tesfaye) weaves himself directly into the narrative, becoming a sharp wedge between Howard and Julia’s relationship. Tesfaye’ s experience on UNCUT GEMS was no doubt consequential; beyond his general transition to acting roles in high-profile projects like HBO’s THE IDOL, his 2020 album “After Hours” is also thought to have been directly influenced by his immersion into the medium of cinema and experiences on this film. The film sees Tesfaye perform his early single “The Morning” live during a pivotal nightclub sequence, further adding to UNCUT GEMS’ lurid atmosphere while capturing the period setting.

The eclecticism of UNCUT GEMS’ sprawling cast continues with almost too many faces to count. Of these, Judd Hirsch, Tilda Swinton and Wayne Diamond are notable standouts. Hirsch further cements Howard’s Jewishness as his father-in-law and deep-pocketed family patriarch Gooey. One could be forgiven for thinking Swinton isn’t in the film, as her appearance isn’t particularly visual; she plays an aggrieved auction manager who is only heard on the other end of Howard’s phone. Diamond, a local personality whose eccentricity threatens to steal the whole show, relishes the opportunity to exaggerate his wealth and passion for gambling onscreen during the story’s breathless cross-cutting climax. 

UNCUT GEMS continues the Safdies’ raw, visceral aesthetic while transposing it onto the largest canvas of their careers (to this point). While Sean Price Williams had been an integral collaborator behind the camera on their previous films, here the brothers enlist the seasoned services of cinematographer Darius Khondji. Decades spent shooting major Hollywood motion pictures hasn’t spoiled Khondji’s appetite for mean and hungry photography; indeed, he gamely submits to the vision of collaborators half his age. The aesthetic of UNCUT GEMS is, for lack of a better word, ugly. That’s not to say it’s hideous to look at (quite the opposite)! Rather, it embraces certain cosmetic “flaws” in the same shameless way Howard presents himself to the world. The Safdies’ commitment to celluloid film demands that UNCUT GEMS be captured on 35mm stock, even if it means taking a significant pay cut (1). Using a combination of the Arricam LT and ST cameras paired with Panavision lenses, the resulting 2.39:1 image has a beautifying effect on these aforementioned flaws: mixed garish lighting, tacky interior design, cold canyons of concrete, and the pockmarked blemishes peppering characters who have seen some shit. The film’s color palette is genuinely striking, becoming something like the cinematic equivalent of an iridescent oil slick. Overcast daylight casts a grayish pall over the proceedings, forcing the character indoors and underneath teal-tinged fluorescents, moody incandescents, screaming neon, and radioactive black lights. A general blue/green color wash soaks the film, reminiscent of the major colors of the all-consuming opal at the heart of Howard’s obsession. 

The larger budget also accommodates the Safdies’ ambition for restless, ever-more dynamic camera movement. This is arguably where Scorsese’s executive producer credit is most felt, with the brothers building on the elder filmmaker’s innovations with the Steadicam with some innovations of their own. The biggest challenge of any tracking or following shot isn’t the complexity of actor choreography or the best placement of lights— it’s maintaining perfect focus when the difference between a successful or a ruined take is only a few millimeters. Towards that end, the production utilizes the cutting edge tech of the Light Ranger 2, a device that helps the First Assistant Camera achieve perfect focus pulling via a 16 layer calibration system and corresponding monitor overlay. Far from an auto-focus tool, the Light Ranger 2 allows for precise manual focus pulling without taking away the focus puller’s autonomy. The effect is invisible, making for a seamless watching experience on UNCUT GEMS that keeps our eye on the proverbial ball, and not on the one dribbling it.

One of the most remarkable aspects of UNCUT GEMS’ existence is how the Safdies lose nothing of their distinct voice despite the pressures of a Hollywood-sized budget and the participation of Hollywood-sized talent. Towards this end, the brothers retain key collaborators where they can. This includes the return of fellow Red Bucket Collective member Sam Lisenco as Production Designer, while writing partner Ronald Bronstein works with Benny in the editorial suite. Composer Daniel Lopatin, working here under his own name after delivering GOOD TIME’s score under his stage name Ohneotrix Point Never, imbues UNCUT GEMS with an electronic eccentricity befitting the story’s idiosyncratic tone. A bed of synths evokes Vangelis’ work on BLADE RUNNER (1982), turning Manhattan’s Diamond District into a strange new world, while fake chorals add an irreverent, heavenly accent that further anchors the story’s interweaving of faith and religion. While a composer’s contributions are normally separate from the use of needledrops, Lopatin would enjoy a somewhat symbiotic relationship with The Weeknd; beyond the film’s aforementioned diegetic inclusion of “The Morning”, Lopatin and Tesfaye would go so far as to record a couple songs together. They ultimately didn’t make the final cut, but Lopatin’s credit on The Weeknd’s “After Hours” album (6) suggests their efforts found a release nevertheless.

If there was a key theme unifying the whole of the Safdies’ feature-length work to date, it very well might be the desperate absurdity of the 21st-Century rat race. Whether it’s overpriced groceries, housing unaffordability, gun violence, or even extreme weather events, most Americans can sympathize with the sentiment. Those who are routinely shut out from it by socioeconomic inequities are feeling the squeeze even more. It could be said that Howard has already achieved his American dream, but the manifestations of his success — his own business, luxury possessions, a house in the suburbs and a pied-é-terre in the city — are all a smokescreen. His gains aren’t ill-gotten, but rather, ill-borrowed; he’s had to go deep into debt to finance his lavish lifestyle, and his creditors don’t call collection agencies… they call goons with baseball bats and snub-nosed pistols. In fleshing out Howard’s world with their meticulous and extensive research into the city’s diamond merchant community and the intermixing of professionals with non-actors plucked off the streets, the Safdies retain the documentary realism of their prior features. In stripping away the veneer of theatrical artifice inherent to big-budget productions, they can better evoke the unceasing anxiety and stress that propels Howard through his harebrained attempts to pay off the loan sharks… and maybe even make a little profit in the process. On the street, as in the board room, profit absolves the sins incurred in its making. Only suckers make an honest buck.

UNCUT GEMS premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, a kingmaker event for Oscar hopefuls. Indeed, nearly everything about UNCUT GEMS’ release was timed to coincide with awards season so that it could aggressively push Sandler towards an Oscar nomination. The trade winds seemed to be blowing at their back, with the Safdies’ longtime passion project bowing to overwhelmingly positive reviews— nearly all of which praised Sandler’s performance as the best of his career. In typical Sandler fashion, he even jokingly threatened to go off and make “the worst movie ever’ in revenge for not getting nominated (7). It was undeniably His Time… except the Academy didn’t get the memo. Sandler’s ultimate exclusion from the final list of nominees must have been disappointing, albeit probably expected given the types of work the Academy usually recognizes. He would have to console himself with an Independent Spirit Award win for Best Male Lead, alongside the Safdies’ win for Best Director and Benny & Bronstein’s win for Best Editing. To focus exclusively on Sandler’s thwarted ambitions however is to ignore UNCUT GEMS’ overall standing as a major win for both the Safdies and indie cinema in general. Its modest but significant $50 million box office haul — A24’s largest until being unseated by EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (2022) — proved that there was still a hunger for raw, unsanitized storytelling in a realm otherwise dominated by airbrushed superhero spectacles made by committee.

Indeed, the Safdies have been steadily crafting what The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw would call “a cinema of pure energy and grungy voltage”; their vision is electrifying because of its unique attunement to our present moment while being timeless in its own way. UNCUT GEMS, like GOOD TIME or DADDY LONGLEGS before it, is recognizant of the distinct absurdities of trying to make it in America in the 21st Century, and at the same time feels like the natural outgrowth of the centuries of hustler culture that created this beautiful mess in the first place. UNCUT GEMS’ abrasive excellence feels so natural and inevitable because the Safdies had spent the last decade putting us in the right frame of mind, telling us the stories that only they could tell. 

Finally being able to achieve one’s dream project is the ultimate goal of just about any filmmaker, so the question remains: now that the Safdies have ostensibly done just that, where do they go from here? A look into the patchwork nature of their subsequent efforts gives few clues— a fly-by-night short starring Sandler, another music video, producing credits on a handful of TV shows, and Benny’s own ascent as a major actor in demand by directors like Paul Thomas Anderson and Christopher Nolan. As of this writing, there’s even breathless trade reports that Josh and Benny have effectively “broken up” to focus on their own solo endeavors. Five years on from its release, UNCUT GEMS is still the latest Safdie Brothers feature, but mark my words— it won’t be the last. Not when there’s money to be made.

UNCUT GEMS is currently available on 4K Ultra HD Blu Ray via the Criterion Collection. 

Credits:

Written by: Josh & Benny Safdie & Ronald Bronstein

Produced by: Sebastian Bear-McClard, Eli Bush, Scott Rudin

Director of Photography: Darius Khondji

Production Designer: Sam Lisenco

Editor: Benny Safdie & Ronald Bronstein

Music by: Daniel Lopatin

References:

1. IMDB Trivia Page
2. “Money On The Street: The Making of ‘Uncut Gems’”. 2019. Making of Documentary. 
3. Adam Sandler’s starring role in Uncut Gems almost didn’t happen”. December 12, 2019. Archived from the original on August 27, 2023. Retrieved August 27, 2023.
4. Wiseman, Andreas (September 13, 2018). “‘Frozen’ Star Idina Menzel Joins The Safdie Brothers’ Crime Pic ‘Uncut Gems’”. Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on September 29, 2018. Retrieved September 28, 2018.
5. “Inside the Making of ‘Uncut Gems,’ the Best Movie of 2019”. Complex Networks. Archived from the original on January 30, 2023. Retrieved January 30, 2023.
6.  Yoo, Noah (September 24, 2019). “Adam Sandler Shoves the Weeknd in New Uncut Gems Trailer: Watch”. Pitchfork. Archived from the original on September 29, 2019. Retrieved September 29, 2019.
7.  Carras, Christi (January 13, 2020). “Adam Sandler trolls academy with witty reaction to Oscars snubbing ‘Uncut Gems’”. Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on September 16, 2021. Retrieved September 16, 2021.