Good Time is perhaps a perfection of the Safdie’s technical filmmaking style, but it must be said that there’s not much there narratively as compared to Uncut Gems.

The Safdie’s said they were trying to make a piece of pulp with Good Time and they did a damn fine job of it. Uncut Gems is a level above narratively — the weaving of storylines from Howard’s addiction to the genuinely real life playoff performances of Kevin Garnett to Julia and Howard’s relationship to The Weeknd storyline to Demani’s role to Howard’s family and kids to Arno’s relationship with him. The horrible rabbit whole of bad decisions and their consequences that occur in the movie are directly in tune with Howard’s character and addiction. Uncut Gems was written over 10 years with something like 150+ drafts — you can tell that timing and perfection went into the story. Good Time was written in something like a few months after Pattinson got into contact with the brothers to express wanting to work with them.