A gem of a role
Believe it or not, Sandler could earn an Oscar nod
There’s a chance Adam Sandler could land an Oscar nomination for Uncut Gems — perhaps a surprising development to those who can recall the comedian’s numerous nods from the Razzies, which parody traditional award shows by honouring cinema’s greatest failures each year.
While some point to Sandler’s dramatic turns in Punch-drunk Love and The Meyerowitz Stories as proof of his acting abilities, sibling filmmakers Josh and Benny Safdie credit his comedy records and some sillier roles — including Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore and even the Razzie-nominated Big Daddy — as the reason they wanted him for their latest project. Uncut Gems stars Sandler as Howard Ratner, a jeweller in Manhattan’s Diamond District who tries to repay his gambling debts by auctioning off a long-sought-after rock from Ethiopia containing rare black opals.
As is to be expected, Howard’s convoluted scheme doesn’t quite go as planned — and the same could be said of Uncut Gems itself. The buzzy thriller, inspired by stories the Safdies’ father told them about his time working on the West 47th Street block, has been roughly a decade in the making. There were the usual delays — script rewrites and whatnot — but also the brothers’ tireless pursuit of Sandler.
“He can ground these insane situations in reality to the point where you care and you’re rooting for this character with all your heart,” Benny recently told The Washington Post. “That was something we knew was important for Howard. He’s going to test you, but you always need to love him and root for him.”
It took years to secure Sandler for a role the Safdies, along with frequent collaborator Ronald
Bronstein, seem to have written with the actor in mind. His team passed on the script upon first receiving it in 2011. It wasn’t until Sandler witnessed the giddy chaos of Good Time, the Safdies’s 2017 film starring Robert Pattinson as a bank robber that premièred at the Cannes Film Festival, that Sandler asked, per Benny, “Look, who are these guys and why do they want to meet with me?”
The answer surprised him — Howard, as Benny recalled Sandler saying, “is not a good guy.” The Safdies have described him as lovable, if not likable. He’s the lying, cheating, philandering protagonist of a film that Variety compared to a “protracted heart attack,” and yet you can’t help hoping his ploys work out in the end. Sandler’s magnetic screen presence is undeniable, but it’s his ability to make the careful distinction between lovable and likable that could cast him into the tight race for best actor.
“He could see it,” Benny said of Sandler. “It’s like Rodney Dangerfield: (Howard) gets no respect. All he wants to do is get to that seat at the table.”
While Sandler grounds Uncut Gems, his performance is just one of many out-of-the-box elements — the Safdies, for instance, rewrote parts of the script each time they cast a role. Howard’s wife, Dinah (Idina Menzel), and their children rose in prominence at Sandler’s request.
As for casting Sandler: “Howard may be doing bad things, but he’s not a bad person,” Benny said. “It wouldn’t work with anybody else. We looked at other actors, but it never fully made sense. It was really only when Sandler hopped on board that we really could take it home.”