Cinema review: Uncut Gems

Sandler plays Howard Ratner, a New York jeweller. From the beginning there is a sense of a man who has pushed everything - his marriage, his career, his finances, absolutely everyone's patience and goodwill - to the limit and he has one chance to claw it all back. This chance is a rock containing raw black opals which he will sell for an enormous profit.

A lot goes on around a man who lives by the seat of his designer pants and never gives up despite his endless self-sabotage. He has an angry wife (Idina Menzel) in the suburbs, a girlfriend he mistrusts in the city (Julia Fox), a brother in law to whom he owes money (Eric Bogosian) and a basketball player, Kevin Garnett playing himself, who wants the opals. Ratner is nowhere near as odious as he should be and this is in large part due to Sandler wringing out nuances. It's a loud, sweary, stressful watch and it is really very good.

★★★★ Aine O'Connor

Seberg

Cert: 15A; Now showing

We are all suspicious now of officialdom, but 50 years ago most people believed that governments and agencies like the FBI were a force for good. To have been suspicious of them must have seemed unhinged, which doubled their power over anyone they targeted. Actress Jean Seberg was one such FBI target when she openly supported the Black Panthers in 1969, and Benedict Andrews's film (screenplay by Anna Waterhouse and Joe Shrapnel) tells that story.

Seberg (Kristen Stewart) is at the height of her fame when she has an affair with Civil Rights activist Hakim Jamal (Anthony Mackie). This draws the attention of the FBI (under Colm Meaney) and two agents (Vince Vaughn and Jack O'Connell). Seberg's life and career are never the same. Stewart gives another great performance but the otherwise good film feels a little thin due to the lack of sub-plot. However, it is an effective addition to the body of recent cinema on US-based racism. ★★★ Aine O'Connor

1917

Cert: 15A. Now showing.

Lance corporals Schofield (George MacKay) and Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) are called in to a private meeting with General Erinmore (Colin Firth). They are tasked with a mission to leave their trench in northern France and venture far into enemy territory in order to hand-deliver a vital order halting a planned assault on German forces. If they manage to make it in time and get the order through to superiors, they will have prevented some 1600 soldiers from walking into a deadly trap.

The concept of two impossibly young men being saddled with such a terrifying and impossible responsibility is compelling to consider, as is the scale of the horror their generation were made wade through.

The enemy remains a largely faceless threat, with director Sam Mendes's screenplay (drawn from his own grandfather's account and co-written with Krysty Wilson-Cairns) concentrating on the personal ordeal of the two heroes, one of whom has added incentive by way of a brother posted among the endangered 1600.

The imperative nature of the mission is underscored by extensively long single-takes courtesy of cinematography genius Roger Deakins as the two men set off into their own real-life Mordor.

Time is surely of the essence, you'd assume, in this lavish, wide-screen cousin of Saving Private Ryan and (less so) Dunkirk. It is and it isn't, it turns out. While astounding as a feat of production, there are issues with 1917's pacing.

Sometimes the desire to make things as immediate and realistic as possible can have the opposite effect, and 1917 is such a case. The gimmick of its ultra-long takes makes the fortunes of its two protagonists seem fanciful and strangely episodic, as if they are computer avatars completing a series of levels. They go from one remarkable incident to the next, mostly, it appears, in real-time in a manner that robs the tale of credibility and loosens our grip on the characters.

A Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture (Drama) is thus surprising for a film that works best when it takes its focus away from Schofield and Blake and loses itself in extravagant set piece.

★★★ Hilary A White