I saw Uncut Gems in probably the less than ideal way to go about it—-or perhaps the greatest way to see it—-I dunno. I was hung over from New Year’s Eve, I had barely gotten any sleep, I had some serious drinker’s remorse and a shitty cheap breakfast at some golf club a few towns over, but honestly Uncut Gems, outside of the strange beginning which is almost like Jurassic Park in a weird way, this film is like a 2-hour long anxiety attack that grips you from the beginning and never lets go.
I had anxiety going into this movie though, and by the end of this film I was nervously laughing because of how uncomfortable and tense it was making me because I had no idea what else to do. This is one of the few films I can point two that basically gave me a cardio workout just by watching it and is the best way to describe to those of you normies who don’t have bad anxiety what an anxiety attack actually feels like.
Adam Sandler should be winning best actor this year and it is incredible that he is not even nominated. This is an outright crime against humanity—-well not really, but for cinephiles it kind of is.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen him be better in anything —--and punch-drunk Love legit is one of my favorite movies of all time and probably was my favorite performance of his—-outside of Little Nicky.
This film jumps out like a bull rider and never stops and there are scenes and set pieces in this that somehow turn something as mundane as an electronic door not opening into something that made me want to bite my fingernails until they were nubbins.
This is a movie I can’t even say that I’d recommend because I’m scared to revisit it and it doesn’t make you feel good at all. I can see why general audiences are left scratching their head because this definitely isn’t a movie with Al Pacino singing a song about donuts.
I mean, even knowing what happens the second time around, I can’t imagine me being less anxious in a second viewing. This film should be airdropped over enemy lines just to stress out everyone behind enemy lines and distract them.
I will admit that I’ve never seen Good Time, but my friend reassured me that their other movie is also like this. I wanna check it out because I think Uncut Gems, but I’m going to have to take some time off before I subject myself to a similar feeling like this film made me have.
I can’t say enough about how good this movie is. The more I think about it, the more I like it, and I don’t think I’ve seen much else this year that imprints images and scenes with a feeling of dread and anxiety in the same way.
I feel like I had PTSD after watching this film (this is not to make light of people that actually have that condition, I’m being hyperbolic).
