The Safdie Brothers and Their Leading Men
First year Conrad Gardner examines a decision by Hollywood’s hottest new filmmakers and takes a lesson for his own creative practice.
I was surprised a few years ago to find myself enjoying Robert Pattinson as an actor. I never had anything particular against him, but it was common for boys my age to hate him for the Twilight franchise. Then I started watching more independent films as a teenager and discovered Pattinson’s more obscure work, such as The Rover and his collaborations with David Cronenberg. But what really made him someone to watch, for me, was the Safdie Brother’s 2017 feature Good Time.
Josh and Benny Safdie have made a name for themselves creating kinetic, claustrophobic films that depict the worst kinds of people. Their recent feature, Uncut Gems, won three Independent Spirit Awards, and their stars seem to keep rising.
Three minutes into Good Time, I thought, ‘Oh my god, what happened to Robert Pattinson?’ Dressed in an overlarge coat, a hoodie and baggy clothing, with intense eyes and a relentless energy, he is hardly recognisable. He lies, cheats, and drugs a security guard. He is almost irredeemable, but somehow, we must keep watching. Somehow, the Safdies convincingly turned the sparkly boy from Twilight into a thug from Queens, and it’s mesmerizing.
Then the Safdie’s cast Adam Sandler in 2019’s Uncut Gems. Now, even as a person who grew up finding Adam Sandler quite irritating, I had to concede he could act well when given the right work and direction (seriously, watch Punch Drunk Love), but I still never thought I’d see him deliver a performance like this. With the help of earrings, bling, glasses and a grin desperate for your affection, he too is almost unrecognisable. Usually in the genial funny man role, Sandler here is unfunny, uncharming, and unpleasant. I started off wanting to like him, but he constantly did things to make me hate him (if the gambling problem was not bad enough, he also cheats on his wife). Sandler seems so unlike himself here, yet so at home in his performance, for which he won Best Actor at the Independent Spirit Awards and was rumoured for an Oscar nomination.
Throughout these two films, the Safdies have shown us that these well-known but often disliked actors can absolutely thrive in roles that many people would hesitate to consider them for. I would never have thought of Sandler being right for the role of an abrasive gambling addict, nor Pattinson as a street-wise thug. I think the Safdies purposefully chose to cast these mostly disliked actors for these films: the average viewer likely already has feelings and expectations about these actors, and they shock the viewer by playing off those expectations. Even with my mixed feelings regarding Sandler, I found the juxtaposition to his endearing Punch-Drunk Love character so jarring that I felt a little nauseous watching the train wreck that he is in Uncut Gems.
I know that since encountering these films, I am going to take a page from the Safdies and try to incorporate more hard to like characters and situations into my own work. I think it’s refreshing and effective to take characters who would normally be avoided or pushed to the side (i.e. common street thug, Jewish jeweller) and bring them to the forefront.
by Conrad Gardner