Rough stones

I have never been an Adam Sandler fan. His kind of loud, screeching, sophomoric humor is just not my thing; even in a "It's funny to see someone else make a fool of themselves" kinda way. So, now that's he's doing dramas in the same kind of loud, screeching, sophomoric manner... Yeah, it's still not my thing. I was about 30 minutes into Uncut Gems and was thinking: "This is really tedious."; mostly because they were doing the New York Brofus culture, non-stop, where everyone is constantly loud and constantly shouting over each other in an attempt to win an argument by making the other person realize that no one is communicating and shutting up first. This was basically the entire film. It was like a New York version of La La Land, where the latter was an insipid presentation of acting culture in LA and this was an Iphone recording of the right field seats in Yankee Stadium with better production values.

The divide on Rotten Tomatoes over this one is significant, with 92% of critics favoring it and only 53% of moviegoers. The normal thought process is that regular audiences aren't cinema freaks who can't really understand the deeper meanings or hidden subtexts of the critics' favorites or choose to ignore those things in favor of being entertained. But I suspect that this is more like the difference between an insider's world and the actual world, where critics are tossing Sandler a bone because he's "paid his dues" on the comedy circuit and is now trying serious drama, and the audience is objecting to being shouted at for two hours. And, of course, drama still needs to be entertaining in some fashion and this film simply wasn't. I'm all about the main character being an asshole. I'm totally down with the "anti-hero" concept and stories about people that are generally difficult to live with. What I'm less enthused about is when every, single person on the screen is an asshole, which is what we had here. You couldn't feel sympathetic toward any of these people. Not even the kids. Even Kevin Garnett was presented as a callous prick and I've read enough interviews with the guy to know that he's actually a pretty decent human being.

And perhaps that was the point? If you show all of these people at their worst, it makes it into kind of a freakshow, where the audience just laughs and shakes their heads in wonder at the idiotic situations that all of these characters end up in. That's a fairly good summation of the bulk of Sandler's comedy, so I guess it can't be a surprise that that's how he ends up doing dramatic roles. What's surprising is that so many critics seem to find that acceptable or in any way original or worthwhile. Again, if that was the point and I'm simply missing it... OK. Again, it's just not my style. Sandler has many fans and many people loved him on SNL and in his various films. I'm clearly not his target audience.

To Sandler's credit, he does well with the role. If he weren't so loud and stupid, he'd be a genuinely sympathetic character, as he constantly thinks that he's found the next big thing that will send him on his way, whether it be because he's the only one who thought about obtaining opals from Beta Israel or because he's the one who "feels" that the Celtics will win tonight ("And no one else feels what we feel!") The problem is that we never see Howard actually fail. We see his schemes get interrupted or delayed or him run into various mishaps of his own devising. But the usual sad sack story of the born loser who finally thinks he's hit it big? That's not this story. Howard runs a jewelry business in the diamond district and can drop five figures on a sports bet. That's not a 'born loser' story. That's a gambling addict story, but it's one with very little heart because, again, everyone is loud and conceited and stupid. If you want to see a good, introspective film about a gambling addict, go see Mississippi Grind. I have to say that I was also impressed by Eric Bogosian, as Arnold, Howard's brother-in-law and the world's most reluctant loan shark. He did really excellent work conveying just how troubling it was to be dealing with his business inside the family.

So, the film doesn't entirely lack high points. They were just largely drowned out by the unending torrent of screeching low points. And, of course, a lot of Sandler's pals were dropped in, like Mike Francesa as his bookie, The Weekend, John Amos, Trinidad James, and so on. Again, La La Land, but in New York, talking about how wonderful it is to be an incredibly wealthy, loud, obnoxious New Yorker. If that's what you're into, then this is the film for you. Myself, I'll stick to things that don't make me want to lower the volume.