The Safdies use New York City in ways that haven't been seen since films in the '70s. It's more like a virtual-reality game where you step into Howard's experience. This is not a "cautionary tale" about the dangers of gambling. So is his mistress, who also suffers from a form of "gold sickness.” It is their main bond. The nerve endings are so frayed they need the stress. Howard is always on the go, always running out of rooms, racing down sidewalks, charging across lobbies.Īnd that's the thing about addiction, the thing that "Uncut Gems" really understands. He's put up his young mistress ( Julia Fox) in an apartment he's rented for her. His wife ( Idina Menzel) seethes with hatred for him. He owes so much money that goons follow him around, showing up at his office. Howard saying "yes" is the first of the many, many terrible choices he makes over the next 135 minutes. Garnett asks if he could borrow the opal for good luck at the upcoming Eastern Conference finals, and Howard says yes. He tells Garnett about how he feels connected to the Ethiopian Jews who dig up the opals, and his enthusiasm is so passionate it's catching. Howard can't resist showing Garnett his latest acquisition: the opal, just arrived from Ethiopia, which Howard is putting it up for auction later in the week (at a hugely inflated price). His assistant Demany ( LaKeith Stanfield) hustles clients who might be interested in the flashy items in Howard's inventory, and the latest lure is Boston Celtics star Kevin Garnett (playing himself), waiting in the shop when Howard returns from the colonoscopy. The double entrance to his shop-requiring two buzzes-is a buffer between Howard and the world, giving him (at the most) 10 seconds lead time against anyone looking for him. Howard's jewelry shop in New York's Diamond District is a tiny space with the atmosphere of a three-ring circus. Its power is almost wholly symbolic.Ĭo-written by the Safdies and regular collaborator Ronald Bronstein, "Uncut Gems" immerses you in Howard's nutty cacophonous world. Howard's black opal is the same as any long-besought gem: it emanates a magical pull on all who look upon it. Tolkien in The Hobbit), the hypnotic power of gems luring men into madness since the beginning of time, seeking pirate's gold, El Dorado, the Holy Grail, on doomed colonialist adventures. He lives in a state of "gold sickness" or "dragon sickness" (so vividly described by J.R.R. The opal is inside Howard, his need for it comes from the basest part of him. This is metaphor writ so large it's brazen, a theme hammered home with refreshing rhetorical candor. The images on the hospital monitor look similar to the fantastical space of the opal's innards, its curves and layers. The colon of Howard, to be exact, as he endures a colonoscopy. It makes sense, then, that "Uncut Gems" would start with a sequence where the camera goes inside a black opal (dug out of the Welo opal mines in northern Ethiopia) which then morphs into the inside of a human colon.
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