In 2020, on the occasion of the release of the excellent Uncut Gems, we decided, in these same columns, to assume our admiration for Adam Sandler, still relevant despite the release, today, of the absurd second Murder Mystery opus on Netflix. Complexed single, vacillating father or ripoux jewelry retailer: portrait of an ambivalent actor. Bad nominations Three years ago, the Independent Spirit Awards, which often impose themselves as anti-Oscars, chose to crown the Safdie brothers ( Best Directors) and Adam Sandler (Best Actor) for his role in Uncut Gems. This ceremony allowing lengthy and unformatted speeches, the actor took advantage of this platform to pay for the Oscars: “Tonight, looking at this room, I realize that the Independent Spirit Awards are the prizes for the best personalities in Hollywood . So let’s all those permed assholes get their Oscars tomorrow. Their beautiful little looks will disappear over time, while our independent personalities will shine for eternity.” See also on Konbini The subject of prices is sensitive for the actor who had come to threats (with Sandler sauce) a little early in the season, as the nominations started rolling in. Full of hope and ambition for the Safdie feature film, he had threatened to shoot a new turnip if he did not get his Oscar nomination. And we know it, the man is capable of anything. For what it’s worth, he is the lucky holder of the most nominations at the Razzie Awards, the opposite parody of the Oscars, which rewards the best of worst of Hollywood cinema. In 2020, he was again nominated for Uncut Gems but this time it was in the category “actor who manages to redeem his credibility”. If, thanks to the latest film by the little princes of New York independent cinema (Mad Love in New York and Good Time, that’s them), the world seemed to discover Sandler’s acting talent, yet he didn’t wait for his role as a trafficker in precious stones to shine.Anderson and Apatow: the consecrationIn the years 1990, “Sandman” subscribed to popular comedies not necessarily of quality. Popular, yes and no, because neither Deuce Bigalow: Gigolo despite himself nor Une nana au poil won him the sympathy of the public. But his versatile and enigmatic career choices did not scare Paul Thomas Anderson who will want him for his quirky romantic comedy Punch-Drunk Love. Adam Sandler portrays a complexed and almost autistic bachelor who frantically collects discount coupons for a brand of cakes in the best (in our eyes far from objective) PTA feature film. The film will be selected at Cannes, will win the prize directing and even earned the actor his only Golden Globe nomination to date. A completely new highlight for the Hollywood nerd who will continue his fruitful collaboration with Anderson on Blossoms and Blood. will offer the lead role of Funny People. In this quasi-autobiography of his life, Sandler is George Simmons, an often egocentric, sometimes unsympathetic actor in Nanardesque comedies, who learns with a crash that he has leukemia and will then see his world and his principles shaken. elsewhere a tribute, in its own way, to Apatow’s film during his very spirited speech, again at the Independent Spirit Awards: “Aubrey [Plaza, qui animait la cérémonie des Independent Spirit Awards, ndlr] and I made a movie together, Funny People, 11 years ago. It was the last time the critics pretended not to hate me for five minutes.” four films, contract renewed three times since. The streaming giant would be wrong to deprive itself of the Sandler card since Murder Mystery with Jennifer Aniston, released in 2019 on the platform, was the most viewed film on Netflix, with 31 million viewers worldwide in just three days, thus beating the Bird Box record. While it has always seemed fashionable to spit in Sandler soup, the numbers say something else entirely. Its hype on Netflix is real since users of the platform have watched more than two billion hours of Adam Sandler films since 2015. The giant has also chosen to pull the very profitable rope with a second opus of Murder Mystery which makes absolutely no sense but which will have enabled the author of these lines to meet the man in question. And if the quality of these comedies produced for the American giant leaves something to be desired, history will repeat itself for a second time when another cool kid in New York independent cinema wants to hoist him to the top of the bill, a few years before the Safdie. So it was in 2017 that Noah Baumbach offered him the lead role in The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), alongside Ben Stiller, Hollywood’s other sad clown. Accompanied by Elizabeth Marvel, they will form a dysfunctional New York Jewish sibling, at the bedside of an artistic and selfish patriarch. On the left, Ben Stiller plays the brother to whom everything seems to succeed, on the right, Adam Sandler delivers on his side a touching performance as a divorced father who forms a fusion duo with his teenage daughter, entirely devoted to his family and decked out with a limp that he stubbornly ignores. Uncut Gems: the blessing From The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), in competition for the Palme d’or at Cannes, the same year as Bong Joon-ho who had landed with a bang with Okja also made for Netflix, nothing very notable for Sandler. However, from 2010, the Safdie brothers courted him to offer him a role. His agent, then he who does not feel up to it, will refuse the proposal. Ben and Josh will then turn to Sacha Baron Cohen and Jonah Hill before returning to their first love who will eventually accept, at the insistence of his wife and children. Who else to interpret this desperate hero, in his anxiety descent into hell at 100 an hour, who keeps falling to get up better until the fatal blow? Nobody, if not this superb loser who has comedy in his veins and who carries the Safdie brothers’ new feature film head on. once again their little protege – who recently put on basketball coach Sugerman’s Air Jordans in The Top of the Basket, released in 2022 on the platform – in a future feature film on a nostalgic story of collecting sports cards, still under the leadership of Netflix. If Sandler did not wait for the Safdie to reveal his talent in the eyes of those who wanted to see further than this shovelful of bad comedies, it is undeniable that they offered him a very beautiful role thanks to which he was finally able to take his revenge. They cooled Sandler like they cooled Pattinson with Good Time. But at the age of 50, after a 30-year career, doesn’t recognition come too late for someone who has never stopped wanting to gain credibility? “I can’t thank the Safdie brothers enough for allowing the press to say something nice about me in 30 years of fucking career,” he concluded at the Independent Spirit Awards. Whether he was a desperate bachelor, a clumsy father or an unlucky gambler, always clumsy with his eternal clothes that were too big, this ugly duckling turned swan has touched us from the start.
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