Adam Sandler plays against type with a majority of non-actors to cohere a project of complete mayhem. Uncut Gems is a rather outstanding movie that makes you really feel for the main character portrayed by Sandler. 

Howard is a jeweler on 74th street in New York and throughout the entire movie he doesn’t make decisions that sit well with the audience. Never have I had an experience with a film where the entire movie I can’t sit still because everything going on in the movie is designed to make you feel like you’re having a heart attack. Howard just manages to slip through and barely manage all the way until the end, where an intense buildup leads to a pretty phenomenal ending that you won’t forget. 

You get the intense back and forth and extreme claustrophobia with the scenes in the store front of the diamond shop. Howard becomes so alive in order to sell products. Meanwhile we get to see how he truly is doing when he makes it into his backroom at the shop, throughout the movie this will become his clear safe space where he shows his real emotions. 

Howards family life certainly isn’t great but he still puts on his Howie smile and pushes through almost never showing how hurt he may be on the inside. 

Where this movie shines is in it’s cast of actors, and in my personal preference, Uncut Gems is the best example of a perfectly cast movie ranging from Adam Sandler playing against type to create this fantastical jeweler that you can’t get enough screen time of, to freaking Kevin Garnett, NBA superstar who hits the screen like a seasoned actor. Other actors such as Howard’s girlfriend Julia Fox also hits it out of the ballpark with her girlish love for Howard. Both Julia and Kevin have claimed it’s easy to act as the person you are in real life but regardless it makes you want more of the characters because they are all written so well. The last set of actors I want to highlight are the thugs in the movie. The thugs in the movie are thugs from real life brought in to play thugs trying to get money that Howard owes them. Many of the most intense scenes have an actor that has never previously acted before and there isn’t a minute you can tell. It definitely takes some screen time to get used to the way Adam Sandler is dressed and talks in the film but I assure you that you will be in love with this movie too. 

This movie has one of the greatest soundtracks ever created for a movie. Each track created by Daniel Loptain sets the atmosphere of the scene and makes every scene distinguishable by music alone. The final track of the soundtrack created for the movie is the music heard in the final moments of the movie and whenever you listen to the track you relive the last moments of the movie all over again.  

Overall, Uncut Gems is an outstanding piece of work that started off as a script and a dream some ten years ago for the Sadie Brothers turned into one of the best movies to come out in 2019, releasing on December 25th and even bringing Adam Sandler a Golden Globe nomination and a critical acclaim for many fresh actors. The most acclaimed of course is focused on Adam’s character Howard who is the epitome of a gambling addict jeweler trying to make his way to cash-out.