Uncut Gems - upcoming Safdie Bros film with Adam Sandler (!)

Let me tell you folks, this film is going to **** you up in the best possible way.

It’s very much a continuation of the Good Time approach - a darkly comedic thriller where a plan will never work out the way the protagonist thinks it will. It’s relentless in its wild, anxious energy - just a pulsating, underlying level of tension and imminent catastrophe that barely lets up at all. It’s an inspiring piece of orchestrated unease and chaos. Sandler’s wild, twitchy mannerisms are an ideal fit - cocksure to an almost manic degree. It’s a terrifically mad performance to watch, and a key ingredient in the Safdie’s pitch perfect tension machine.

I kind of love how it matches its amusingly recent period setting (2012) with a gritty, old school visual style and synth-heavy soundtrack - adds an additional layer of unease through recognisable but strangely off kilter and out-of-time setting and stylings.

Anyway it’s the feature film equivalent of a light but persistent panic attack, and please take that as the compliment it’s intended to be A proper treat.

glasso wrote: »

Sandler is much maligned for all the sh1t stuff that he has done.

Given the chance with a good script and a director that directs him he can be great.

It's a shame - there are a few actors who can balance the pay-cheque stuff and passion projects extremely well, but Sandler has only done - by my count - three really interesting, challenging projects over the years (I'm not counting Reign Over Me, although at a stretch Funny People could be a fourth). Don't get me wrong, I'm sure he enjoys making the dumbass comedies too. But for someone who does show as much talent as he does in this or Punch Drunk Love - his two best performances, near two decades apart - it's disappointing he doesn't put himself out there more.

Maybe the good buzz from this will encourage him to do more.

pixelburp wrote: »

I've heard this talk about it being a "stressful" movie, can folks who've seen it explain what's meant? Is it just a tension that's constant over the story elements, or something else? Just not sure it'd a descriptor that'd necessarily entice...

It’s almost like a dramatic version of something like Curb Your Enthusiasm - just a plan going very, very wrong with increasingly tense consequences. The film’s crafted like an absolute dream, though, with Sandler’s twitchy, cocksure performance a force of nature that suits the material perfectly. It’s stressful in the best possible way

Whatsisname wrote: »

Dying to see this. How are people seeing it early as far as I'm aware its not out until the end of January over here?

It’s out next Friday in cinemas, then end of the month on Netflix. I saw it at a festival, and I know there have been a few preview screenings as well. By the sounds of it it has also ‘leaked’ - but glad to hear it’s been something of a cinema hit in the US.