What “Uncut Gems” achieves is something that cannot be understated. In an age of sequels, remakes, and big budget Marvel movies, it isn’t often that a movie comes along and offers a completely fresh approach and style. Directors Josh and Benny Safdie, along with a reinvented Adam Sandler, possess such a strong understanding of movies that they are able to play fast and loose with the rules to make “Uncut Gems” one of the best movies in recent memory. On a fundamental level, they know that people go to the movies to feel. 

A good movie will allow someone to feel happy, sad, inspired, excited, hopeful, and everything in between. Rare is the movie where the primary emotion it provides is anxiety. “Uncut Gems” does this with every scene. It takes the audience right up to the edge of a panic attack and does not let up until the final credits roll and you can finally take a breath. There are closeup shots, lightning speed cuts, and people talking over each other for the entire duration (not to mention it has the seventh most F-bombs in movie history). The Safdie brothers shot the movie in such a way that even a scene about a door being jammed can induce some nail-biting. There are no down moments. The comic relief, which Adam Sandler supplies plenty of, isn’t so much relief as it is a reminder that any victory experienced can turn into a crushing defeat, and anything stable is just as fraudulent as the fake Rolexes that his character, Howard Ratner, sells from his New York City diamond store.

 The stress that you get from watching “Uncut Gems” is a completely different from the feeling you get from any other crime thriller. The suspense does not come from a desire to find out what will happen in the end, but rather from a certain inevitability that is present throughout the entire movie. The anxiety isn’t there because you are wondering what might happen. It’s there because you know what will. You’re not worried what will happen to the characters, you’re worried about what will happen to yourself. 

The movie does such a good job pulling the audience in that every mistake a character makes feels like your own, and every barely avoided crisis provides a shot of adrenaline. The greatest compliment I could give the film is that it traps us in a bad day that keeps getting worse and worse, but with just enough joyous triumphs to keep the hope alive. The Safdie brothers have so thoroughly depicted the chaos of New York City and Sandler plays Ratner, the flawed but charismatic hustler, with impressive conviction. “Uncut Gems” will make you just as obsessed with winning long shot gambles as Ratner is, but as it reminds us time and time again, winning means nothing without the imminent threat of losing.

On its surface, “Uncut Gems” is a purely transactional movie. Ratner, a smooth talking jeweler, must sell a rare gem in order to pay off the debt that he accrued buying it in the first place. He avoids menacing goons, battles a gambling addiction and places risky bets throughout the movie, both in sports and in his own life. 

This sets in motion the idea that every crisis Ratner encounters is due entirely to his own need for chaos and the rush he gets from barely escaping turmoil. He keeps tabs on his renegade employees, rubs shoulders with Kevin Garnett and The Weeknd and attempts to keep his family together, though that is only because he was bored. The real genius in the movie is how it gets us to root for Howard almost immediately, despite his lack of regard for anything besides his next adrenaline high. Adam Sandler totally assumes the character and finally has been given some good material to work with. Following Howard Ratner though the streets of Manhattan is a true joy, but you won’t realize that until it ends and you can exhale. Audiences at the beginning will find themselves rooting for a happy ending and for Howard to escape his danger. By the end of the movie, you realize that he needed it to survive.