Producer: Claire Lewis   Director: Michael Apted   Distributor: BritBox

Grade:  B+

Effectively capturing the passage of time is something filmmakers have always struggled with.  The problem isn’t unique to cinema, of course: novelists have the same challenge.  But the difficulty of addressing it is multiplied when the medium is a visual one, and some have gone to extraordinary means to overcome it.  The most obvious example is Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood,” which he filmed over the course of twelve years to allow us to see the development of a child to the cusp of adulthood.

Linklater’s film is, of course, a work of fiction concentrating on a single youngster.  More expansive in scope is the remarkable “Up” series of documentaries that Britain’s Granada Television has been making since 1964.  The first, “Seven Up!,” directed by Paul Almond, profiled a group of fourteen seven-year olds from different backgrounds; subsequent installments, made every seven years by Michael Apted, followed them to test the truth of the Jesuit adage, “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man”—the issue of determinism—while suggesting the effects of the traditional class system in action.

The result is one of the most remarkable cinematic achievements in the history of documentary filmmaking.  This ninth installment might well be the last (Apted is now 78, and the participants have built such a close working relationship with him that it’s doubtful they would continue with a replacement), and so it’s appropriate that it should have a valedictory tone—one of the subjects has died, and another is seriously ill.  (One of the fourteen has declined to be involved since “21 Up,” and is here joined by another; others have chosen to be absent from a few earlier segments, but are now back.)

In fact, there’s an air of twilight resignation that pervades the film, not simply in the recollections about the deceased participant but in the ill one’s thoughts about mortality and those being left behind.  But there are episodes that are wonderfully uplifting.  Paul and Symon, for example, who were introduced living in a children’s home and have remained friends over the years; they not only revisit the home together and share memories but go on a joint vacation with their wives. 

And no one who has followed the series will be able to resist another meeting with Neil, the Liverpool lad with a ready laugh and big ambitions whose life took turn after unexpected turn, leaving us wondering in each installment whether he would survive to the next.  His psychological stability remains in doubt here, but despite problems in his personal life he has soldiered on and achieved a modicum of acceptance of his condition, and even found ways of serving the community. 

Over the years Apted has developed a style and rhythm for the series—the theatrically-released films are actually shortened versions of the television documentaries—that continues to be followed here.  The bulk of the footage consists of interviews, which are probing without being rude or insensitive.  These one-on-one sessions rarely turn into joint ones (the Paul and Symon segment is an obvious exception) but are accompanied by flashbacks to previous years as Apted notes the changes in the subjects’ conditions without being judgmental about them.  As befits the age of the principals, this installment feels more leisurely and autumnal than earlier ones, but that certainly doesn’t make it any less affecting. 

As a whole the “Up” series is truly an extraordinary cinematic accomplishment, and if this film does turn out to be its culmination, it’s a fitting capstone.  It can be savored on its own—Apted makes sure to tell us about each subject’s past before moving into the present—but it’s a fair certainty that if it’s your first encounter with this fascinating group, you’ll be hooked, and will want to go back to the beginning and follow their individual trajectories over time.  Doing so will take less time than watching the entire run of Marvel Universe movies, and it will be far better spent.            

Producers: Scott Rudin, Eli Bush and Sebastian Bear-McClard   Directors: Josh Safdie and Benny Safdie   Screenplay: Ronald Bronstein, Josh Safdie and Benny Safdie   Cast:  Adam Sandler, LaKeith Stanfield, Julia Fox, Kevin Garnett, Idina Menzel, Eric Bogosian, Judd Hirsch, Keith Williams Richards, Mike Francesca, Jonathan Aranbayev, Noa Fisher and Abel Tesfaye   Distributor: A24 Films

Grade:  B+

One can easily get exhausted just watching Adam Sandler go through his paces in Josh and Benny Safdie’s “Uncut Gems,” a non-stop odyssey of a man desperately trying to save himself as his personal and professional lives collapse around him.  In its rough-edged style and frenetic pacing, it’s not unlike the brothers’ previous film, the ironically titled “Good Time,” in which Robert Pattinson played a skuzzy low-life named Connie who’ll stop at nothing to make a big score, eve n if it means using his mentally-impaired brother.     

This time around, the central figure is Howard Ratner (Sandler)—an appropriately rodent-like name—who, in 2012, is running a chaotic jewelry shop in New York’s diamond district.  He’s an inveterate sports gambler, heavily in hock to an increasingly impatient bookie Arno (Eric Bogosian), whose thugs, headed by his volatile lieutenant (Keith William Richards), are constantly on his tail despite the fact that Aron is his brother-in-law. 

Howard also has problems at home: his wife Dinah (Idina Menzel) is well aware that he’s set up his mistress Julia (Julia Fox), who also works in his store, in an apartment in the city, and he even drags his son (Jonathan Aranbayev) into the fraught situation.  Not that his relationship with Julia is any less troubled; when he suspects that she’s playing the field while leading him on, he tosses her out—though not for long.

In this midst of everything that’s closing in on him, Howard has an escape plan.  He’s acquired a rock from an Ethiopian mine that’s encrusted with gems, and intends to sell it a prestigious auction, bringing in enough to cover his debts and then some.  Naturally things do not go as he’d planned.

A major road bump in his scheme arises when his motor-mouthed assistant Demany (Lakeith Stanfield) brings Boston Celtics star Kevin Garnett, playing himself, into the shop to see the rock.  The NBA player has a superstitious streak, and believes the stone will bring him luck in an upcoming game; Howard lets his borrow it but demands Garnett’s ring as collateral—which, hoping to make a quick profit, he pawns in order to place a bet on the game.  Unfortunately, Arno quashes the bet, and Howard’s hope of an immediate payoff is lost.  Everything now hangs on the auction, which of course does not go smoothly; in fact, Howard enlists his dubious but supportive father-in-law (Judd Hirsch) in an attempt to drive up Garnett’s bid. 

That scheme goes awry too, though in the end Garnett buys the stone.  In the last act, however, Howard’s gambling obsession gambling takes over as he debates whether to pay off Arno or risk everything—including his life—on one more risky bet.  The outcome is a shocker, to say the least. 

Sandler carries “Uncut Gems” with a ferocious performance.  It’s not that he’s departed from his well-known frantic, man-child persona; instead he’s taken it to its utmost—you could say that he’s gone Sandlerissimo.  But it’s certainly effective in this context.  And the Safdies (along with co-writer Ronald Bronstein (who also edited, with Benny) and cinematographer Darius Khondji, have crafted some excruciatingly tense sequences for him, not just the auction and the final stand-off with Arno and his men, but a sequence set at a school talent show where Howard is threatened by Arno’s enforcers.  They also generate considerable suspense )along with some dark comedy) in a familial Passover celebration where both Howard and Arno participate, watching one another warily, and effectively intercut some of Garnett’s actual NBA footage into the action.

The supporting cast are all excellent.  Fox and Menzel evoke the emotional stress of the women struggling to deal with Howard in very different ways, while vets Hirsch and Bogosian inhabit their characters with their customary efficiency, and Richards brings real menace to the table.  Stanfield makes the most of Demany’s loquaciousness, and Garnett shows none of the stiffness of celebrities from other fields trying their hand at acting. 

“Uncut Gems” is a dark parable of a man driven by his demons to make self-destructive choices, likely to elicit radically divided audience reactions, though all will emerge from it feeling as if they’ve been put through as potent an emotional wringer as its protagonist.