Still Need to Watch: The Pleasure of Being Robbed
The Safdie Brothers have split up, and your boyfriends are very upset about it. Anyway, this living, breathing column will track all the nonsense they get up to as best as possible in the years to come. There appears to be a lot of mystery behind their split and speculation runs rampant. I am not entirely sure of what to make of the split, but I hope there is plenty of work from both of them to explore in the years to come.
7. Heaven Knows What [2014] (Directed by Benny & Josh Safdie)
Heaven Knows What feels like the kind of film that if you saw it at the right age, it would blow your mind. On a technical level, there is so much to admire here. The Safdies’ visual sensibilities and style is almost fully realized. There is a tone that can be reductively (and uselessly) described as “dark and gritty” but really what that means is that the Safdies have an ability to make it feel like they are showing you the dark underbelly of society. This is something they would continue to develop and get even better. The difference though than in the years to come is that they were less successful here in getting you invested in the people. The lack of big compelling character actors like Pattinson or big star personas like Sandler or Fieldler made this inherently less interesting compared to what we know they would eventually pull off.
6. Daddy Longlegs [2009] (Directed by Benny & Josh Safdie)
We have all met and had people like Lenny – the kinds of people who are so dysfunctional they are just a tornado who just run over everyone that has the misfortune of being in their lives. There is almost like an object permanence issue for people like Lenny who cannot envision a single consequence to any of their actions and thus make decisions without being able to process what will happen next as a result. In short, Lenny is a fuck-up. It is so sad that people like this are struggling so much, and this movie captures their struggle and their very real damage they do to others.
5. The Smashing Machine [2025] (Directed by Benny Safdie)
The Safdie Bros. split was pretty disappointing to the most annoying men in your life (myself 100% included), but I was intrigued by both of their first film projects. Why? Because when The Rock is working with a talented director and forcing himself out of his cynical and vapid star persona, he is truly a fascinating movie star.
Then came a truly uninspired marketing campaign that made this film seem as ordinary and boring as possible, followed up with the Venice kiss of death, and the most underwhelming buzz imaginable. It got to the point where I almost did not catch this one in theaters at all. (And if not for @funkyassdg, I truly just would have waited to catch it on a plane or on streaming.)
But I am glad I saw it on the big screen because the film is far more interesting than the trailers or buzz would make it seem. The first step to me enjoying this film was accepting that the chaotic and frantic energy of Good Time and Uncut Gems is not something Benny Safdie is actually (seemingly, at least) interested in as a filmmaker. If anything, it was jarring to watch this film and realize how much visual language it had in common with The Curse (one of the best works of art this decade).
There was one key element of the Safdie Bros. magic that Benny is clearly drawn to: he is still interested in picking up rocks and examining the grimy undersides of different pockets of the world. And one of the grimiest surfaces in the world is Mixed Martial Arts. On the surface, you can tell something is wrong with this MMA environment. It is an aesthetically displeasing combat sport that produces visibly horrific damage to the participants in real time while rarely delivering the thrills that it promises.
And yet, underneath, it is somehow worse.
This idea exists in tension with the center of the film: Mark Kerr. Much like the star playing him, Kerr is a complicated man who on the outside must project this hypermasculine facade at all times in the name of business and putting out an image to be capitalized on.
The Rock’s portrayal of Kerr paints a picture of a man who somehow knows on some level, this facade does not make sense. He is desperately in pain, and he even more desperately tries to keep this pain buried underneath layers of false control. He is articulate, emotionally aware, reflective, and intelligent – but no amount of personality nuance can overcome the deep physical and psychological trauma that comes from being a human cockfighter.
Mark Kerr nearly destroyed himself completely shoving down what made him an interesting human to only spotlight the one aspect of himself that could be exploited by others for profit. When you watch the real Mark Kerr in the final sequence of the film, sashaying around, you realize that The Rock was perfect on so many levels for this role and none of them of have to do much with his muscle mass.
The Rock has too frequently projected this idea of himself that is not interesting at all; for so long, the world has only been allowed to instead see a strictly cynical attempt to make money in the ring and on the big screen. But all along, there has always been something more to The Rock. Not charisma for charisma’s sake. There is a complicated performer with a tremendous energy that can convey a deep vulnerability and insecurity. A man who is compelled to carry inhuman muscle mass and promote the worst of American masculinity – but underneath is clearly withholding his humanity.
Benny Safdie and The Rock craft a truly moving and funny portrait of such a tragic figure. Can we not build a better world not dictated by profit? We are destroying the bodies and souls of too many people.
4. Lenny Cooke [2013] (Directed by Benny & Josh Safdie)
In the world of professional basketball (and sports in general), so much emphasis is on the very best players in the world. The true stars that move tickets and dictate the fates of franchises. We often forget about the role players even as they are playing. And then there are the players who never truly make it. The kids who have spent their whole lives getting ready for their NBA career only for it to never materialize. Within the world of basketball, one of the most infamous Never-Was(es) was Lenny Cooke. A player known by the biggest stars of Lebron’s generation but virtually unknown to the rest of the world. The Safdies took over this project covering Cooke and showed how this whole thing impacted him. It is a brutal exploration of what is happening outside the limelight in the world that is exclusively all about the limelight. It is a must-watch.
3. Good Time [2017] (Directed by Benny & Josh Safdie)
Good Time simultaneously served as my introduction to the Safdies and my re-introduction to Robert Pattinson. Going into this film, I knew absolutely nothing about the Safdies whatsoever. I **thought** I knew something about Pattinson, but I was completely wrong in my assumptions in every way possible. I left the film realizing that I needed to watch whatever the Safdies did and to hope that Pattinson continued to seek out actually interesting projects and great filmmakers. The Safdies once again lifted up some rocks and put a spotlight on what was underneath. Pattinson has never been scuzzier (even more so than the meme photo of him). What makes the film so extra fascinating though is how much Pattinson is presented or maybe more specifically acts like he is on this hero’s journey. He sees himself as a heroic man doing what needs to be done, but instead he is scum who is mowing down everyone who has to the misfortune to stumble into his path. It is an eye-opening film in so many ways.
2. Uncut Gems [2019] (Directed by Benny & Josh Safdie)
I will never forget this experience for the rest of my life. It was opening night for Uncut Gems in Manhattan. The theater was jam-packed and likely sold out. After months of hype, people were beyond excited to see this inspired collaboration between the Safdies and Adam Sandler. With 45 minutes to go, the tension is so high as the extending finishing sequence takes shapes, I am cradling my legs in my seat and rocking back and forth. And I never stop until the film comes to a close. As the credits role, the stranger next to me, turns and says on his way out, “Dude, you were amazing.” I have never felt anything like this during a movie before. It was an emotional roller-coaster of tension and anxiety unlike anything I have ever experienced before or since. 2019 was a tremendous year for the world’s greatest filmmakers releasing films, and the very best may have been Uncut Gems.
1. The Curse [2023] (Created by Benny Safdie & Nathan Fielder)
And despite Uncut Gems being a film of the decade level work, nothing the Safdies did together matches what Benny created with Nathan Fielder. The Curse is one of the greatest artistic accomplishments of recent memory.
It rather fittingly feels like a combination of the sensibilities of its two creators. It has the slow awkwardness of Fielder and the pure terror of tension from Safdie. Both men are able to use the slow boil to build to trainwrecks that you cannot keep your eyes off.
These skills were put to use in ways I could have never envisioned previously. Whether it was their intention or not, this mini-series manages to illuminate the incompatibility of the cult of white liberalism and capitalism to make the world materially better.
Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone are two real estate people/home renovators/whatever who are trying to make one of those HGTV (or whatever) reality television shows about house renovations. Only they are doing it with a twist – they promise to make every home environmentally friendly AND to manage to repair/prevent issues of gentrification in this community populated indigenous communities.
The show spends ten episodes how impossible this is if you are playing by the rules of Western Capitalism (again – I have no idea if this was the intent lol). Emma Stone in particular delivers one of the most stunning performances in recent memory as the embodiment of the white woman liberal the West has created.
The Reel World 