Uncut Gems

Written by Ronald Bronstein, Josh Safdie, and Benny Safdie

Directed by Benny Safdie and Josh Safdie

Rating: 👌🏼 ok

Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler), owner and operator of a rare gems shop, is always looking to make a deal. Like a caffeine fueled energizer bunny Howard is always running from one place to the next, buying inventory, pawning personal property, leveraging the property of others, placing bets, and forever on the hunt of the next way to make a buck. Desperate to keep it all together, his relationship with his wife Dinah (Idina Menzel) is only a façade of the happy family that the two had originally tried to create together. His career that he is obsessed with is threatened when he finds himself owing money to the wrong person. Can Howard keep it all together, or will the high-pressure life that he has created finally implode?

First of all, let me say that this film is well-made and I can why a lot of people are raving about it. But I am not one of those people. If you are looking for an anxiety inducing plot full of yelling (Sandler, why must you yell EVERY line?), fighting with family, fighting with business partners, and fighting with random people on the street then this is definitely the movie for you! Kudos to the Safdie Brothers for creating a movie where you feel every ounce of Harold’s anxiety and stress. However, as someone who struggles enough with their own anxiety and actively seeks to reduce stress constantly, I didn’t have a good time in Harold’s world. It was loud, it was obnoxious, and I didn’t like any of the people inside of it.  

This is a film that could be unpacked and analyzed to find the deeper themes, but at the end of the day I just don’t care enough to do so. Harold as the anti-hero left me feeling no emotion for him. There are some pivotal moments of the film where you are called upon to feel compassion for him and to empathize with his heartbreak. But he’s such a piece of sh*t I just can’t. If he had put any effort whatsoever into his relationships, or into bringing any type of positivity into the world then I could have felt for him. As is, he just spends his life walking very quickly through the streets of New York City, yelling on his cell phone, lying, and being a real douche canoe to everyone he encounters. So, do I feel bad for him when people call him out on his sh*t? Not at all. Call me traditional, but I need a hero I can root for.

Review written by Zianna Weston