Uncut Gems

Uncut Gems (2019) is physically exhausting to watch, and that is the design. Howard is a New York jeweller and a compulsive gambler. He stakes his entire future on an opal smuggled out of Ethiopia. At the same time he is managing debts, loan sharks, a collapsing marriage and a girlfriend. The film ties one knot, then another on top of it, then another. The Safdie brothers use sound as a weapon. Everyone talks at once, phones ring constantly, nobody finishes a sentence. Daniel Lopatin's synthesiser score runs underneath all of it. The result is two hours during which your shoulders never come down. Adam Sandler is not doing comedy here and gives the performance of his career. His absence from the Oscar nominations was one of the most argued about omissions of that year. The basketball player Kevin Garnett plays himself and is genuinely good. The last fifteen minutes are among the highest tension sequences in modern cinema. Good for: tense character studies, American independent film, and stories about addiction. Less good for: the swearing and shouting are almost continuous. If you want to relax, this is the wrong film, and the ending is merciless.