Uncut Gems

Director: Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie

2019 / 134min / 35mm

Adam Sandler gives a career-best performance as Howard Ratner, a fast-talking jeweler in Manhattan’s Diamond District with a penchant for living on the edge and well beyond his means, in the Safdies’ hectic, often hilarious thriller, where a debt-saddled Howie makes a series of high-stakes parlay bets on Kevin Garnett’s performance in the 2012 NBA playoffs that could lead to the windfall of a lifetime—or the abrupt end of his gambling career. “It’s gritty, but in the ’80s sense of it—gritty, with a lot of light and contrast. I started being a cinematographer in the ’80s, so they went back to this period of time where we were after very strong, ink blacks, very long lenses, very contrast-y images, very harsh contours… It was completely unlike anything I’ve done. I would never have thought I would photograph one day a movie like this. But it ended up being my favorite work, probably.” —Darius Khondji

Distributor: A24

Part of Radical Chiaroscuro: The Work of Darius Khondji