Uncut Gems is a 2019 American crime thriller film directed by Josh and Benny Safdie, who wrote it with Ronald Bronstein. It stars Adam Sandler, LaKeith Stanfield, Julia Fox, Kevin Garnett, Idina Menzel, and The Weeknd in his debut role. Sandler plays Howard Ratner, a jeweler and gambling addict who must retrieve an opal to pay off his debt. Filming took place from September to November 2018. Daniel Lopatin composed the score.
Uncut Gems premiered at the 46th Telluride Film Festival on August 30, 2019. A24 gave it a limited release in the United States on December 13 and a wide release on December 25, with Netflix releasing it in other territories. It was a box-office success and received acclaim, especially for Sandler's against-type performance, which several reviewers called the best of his career. Uncut Gems was chosen by the National Board of Review as one of the top ten films of 2019, and it has been included in lists of the greatest films of the 21st century.
Plot In 2010, Ethiopian Jewish miners retrieve a rare black opal from the Welo mine in Ethiopia.
In 2012, gambling addict Howard Ratner runs KMH, a jewelry store in New York City's Diamond District. He struggles to pay off his gambling debts, which include a $100,000 loan he owes to Arno, his loan shark brother-in-law. His domestic life is split between his wife Dinah, who has agreed to divorce after Passover, and his girlfriend Julia, a KMH employee.
Howard's business associate, Demany, brings the basketball star Kevin Garnett to KMH. While he is there, the opal, which Howard had smuggled from Africa, arrives. Garnett becomes obsessed with the opal and insists on borrowing it as a good-luck talisman for his game that night. Howard reluctantly agrees, accepting Garnett's 2008 NBA Championship ring as collateral.
After Garnett leaves, Howard pawns the ring and wins a six-way parlay on Garnett playing extraordinarily well in that night's game. The next day, Demany says that Garnett still has the opal, angering Howard. Howard is ambushed at his daughter's school play by Arno and his goons, Phil and Nico. Howard's winning bet should have earned him $600,000, but Arno reveals that he placed a stop on the bet because it was made with money Howard owed him. Phil and Nico strip Howard naked and lock him in the trunk of his car, forcing him to call Dinah for help.
Howard meets Demany at a nightclub party hosted by the singer the Weeknd to retrieve the opal, but learns that Garnett still has it. Howard discovers Julia snorting cocaine in a bathroom with the Weeknd and gets into a fight with him. Feeling betrayed, Howard confronts Julia and demands that she move out of his apartment.
Garnett returns the opal before an auction and offers to purchase it for $175,000, but Howard refuses, believing it is worth much more. Garnett demands his ring back, but Howard lies, saying it is at his house. After Garnett leaves in dismay, Howard berates Demany for allowing Garnett to hold onto the opal for so long. Incensed, Demany quits and trashes Howard's office. After an awkward Passover dinner, Dinah rejects Howard's plea to give their marriage another chance.
Just before the auction starts, Howard discovers the opal has been appraised for significantly less than his initial estimate of $1 million. He convinces his father-in-law, Gooey, to bid on the gem to drive up the price, but the plan backfires when Garnett fails to top Gooey's final bid. A furious Gooey gives Howard the opal before Arno, Phil, and Nico assault Howard outside the auction house. Howard returns to KMH, bloody and in tears. Julia comforts him, and they reconcile.
Howard learns that Garnett is still willing to purchase the opal. Garnett goes to KMH to pay, giving Howard enough money to repay his debt to Arno. Arno, Phil, and Nico arrive at KMH just before Garnett leaves, but before they enter his office, Howard tells Julia to bet the cash on a three-way parlay on Garnett's performance. Julia escapes as the thugs find Howard in his office and threaten him, while Julia travels by helicopter to the Mohegan Sun casino to place the bet. Arno tells Howard to call Julia and cancel the bet, but he refuses. Furious, the three attempt to pursue her, but Howard locks them between the store's security doors as the game concludes on television.
Garnett's Boston Celtics win the game, winning Howard $1.2 million. An ecstatic Howard frees Arno, Phil, and Nico, but Phil, enraged, shoots and kills him. Arno protests and tries to escape, but Phil kills him. Julia leaves the casino with Howard's winnings as Phil and Nico loot the store.
Cast
John Amos, Ca$h Out, and Trinidad James appear as themselves, Amos as Howard's neighbor and the others as acquaintances of Demany. Tilda Swinton and Natasha Lyonne have vocal cameos as the auction manager and a Celtics staff member, respectively. and Matthew Sabia cameos as himself playing a nightclub promoter. Celtics head coach Doc Rivers wrote and delivered a voiceover pep talk for the film. Pom Klementieff has a brief cameo as Lexis, a friend of Julia who greets Howard outside his Manhattan apartment during the opening credits.
Production Concept and screenplay Josh and Benny Safdie came up with the idea of a Diamond District movie in 2009, influenced by their father's stories of working as a diamond salesman. Co-writer Ronald Bronstein came from a similar background, as his father worked in the Garment District. Their shared Jewish upbringing was essential to their crafting of the film. The Safdies have said that "the film is about belonging" but also "about cheating God". Slate called it "the most Jewish movie in years". IndieWires David Ehrlich wrote, "Uncut Gems is the movie that Jews were promised in the Torah. Uncut Gems is gonna be the theme of my son's bar mitzvah."
When creating the character of Howard, the Safdies were heavily influenced by Jewish humor and actors from the 20th century. Howard has been likened to a schlimazel, a stock Jewish humor character marked by his poor luck, or a schlemiel, marked by his ineptitude and clumsiness, though The Village Voices J. Hoberman argued that Howard's shamelessness precludes the latter comparison. The Safdies said they wanted Howard to encompass Jewish stereotypes proudly and treat them as a "superpower", saying, "it was very important to make Howard a strong guy who doesn't back down." Josh Safdie said that one of his goals was to prove "that people can look beyond a flaw. ... That's why the movie is called 'Uncut Gems.' Uncut gems are rough things that are considered ugly by most people, but when you scope them out and get underneath you can find the beauty and value in them."
The Jewish concept of "learning through suffering" was also important for the character. In a round-table hosted by Jewish Currents, David Klion said, "the overriding effect that the movie seems to have on virtually everyone who sees it is one of intense anxiety, which feels like a very Jewish theme." Arielle Angel wrote that Howard embodies a combination of "insecurity plus power" and that his Jewishness makes him "white enough to have access" while leaving him "with this immigrant hustler mentality".
The Safdies designed Howard to channel Jewish "stereotypes that were forced onto us in the Middle Ages, when ... our only way of accruing status as an individual, as a person who was considered a human being, was through material consumption." Production designer Sam Lisenco worked with the Safdies to depict a new-money striver who, despite his wealth, retains the trashy tastes of his childhood. Lisenco noted that Howard buys expensive but dated items he could not afford when he was younger, like the Sony Trinitron television in his Manhattan apartment, floor-to-ceiling mirrors, and large fish tanks. The Ringer's Katie Baker called the overall effect "a study in tacky midtownish entropy".
Development In May 2016, it was announced that the Safdies would direct the film from a screenplay they wrote with Bronstein, and that the Safdies' company Elara Pictures and RT Features would produce, with Emma Tillinger Koskoff and Martin Scorsese as executive producers. In May 2017, the Safdies announced that Scott Rudin, Eli Bush, and Sebastian Bear-McClard would produce the film, and A24 would distribute it. Netflix acquired the international distribution rights.
Casting The Safdies initially approached Adam Sandler to star in 2010 and 2015, but his manager rejected the script. Once Scorsese agreed to executive-produce, actors started taking the film more seriously. Jonah Hill was cast as Howard in May 2017, and the Safdies tried to rewrite the character to be younger, but Hill dropped out due to scheduling problems and chose to direct Mid90s. In April 2018, Sandler agreed to play Howard after watching the Safdies' film Good Time. Other actors considered for the role included Sacha Baron Cohen, Harvey Keitel, and James Caan (around 2011).
Eric Bogosian, Judd Hirsch, Lakeith Stanfield, and Idina Menzel joined the project in August and September 2018. Tom Sizemore, Jerry Ferrara, John David Washington, and Isla Fisher read for those parts at a table-read during development. Three hundred actresses auditioned for the role of Julia, and the names of Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lawrence, Scarlett Johansson, and Kim Kardashian were thrown around; but the role eventually went to Julia Fox. Riley Keough also read for the part at a table-read during development.
For the role of the basketball player, Kevin Garnett was cast in September 2018. Kobe Bryant, Amar'e Stoudemire, and Joel Embiid were also considered. The Safdies originally wrote the part with Bryant in mind, and planned to focus on the day that Bryant broke the Madison Square Garden single-game scoring record, but Bryant's agent said Bryant was interested only in directing. The Safdies were drawn to Stoudemire due to his joint black and Jewish heritage, as well as his years with the New York Knicks, the Safdies' favorite team. (Josh Safdie said, "There's a strong correlation with Judaism and Knicks basketball ... it has to do with suffering and trying to understand your life.") But Stoudemire refused to shave his head to mirror his Knicks-era look. Embiid initially agreed to join, but was forced to drop out when the Safdies moved filming to the basketball season. The Safdies began to look at retired players and settled on Garnett, even though Garnett's Celtics and the Knicks have a historic rivalry.
In October 2018, it was revealed that the Weeknd, Trinidad James, and Pom Klementieff had joined the cast. The Weeknd specifically requested to play the role as an egotistical punk, saying that was how he treated people in 2012. Klementieff's scenes, apart from a brief cameo during the opening credits, were cut.
Filming Principal photography began on September 25, 2018, in New York City, and concluded on November 15. The film was shot by Darius Khondji, primarily on 35 mm film, using vintage anamorphic prime and long zoom lenses. Night sequences were filmed using the Arri Alexa Mini camera outfitted with the same pairing of lens types. O'Kiep, South Africa doubled as the Welo mine in Ethiopia, but Ethiopians were cast as extras. For verisimilitude, the filmmakers borrowed real footage from Garnett's NBA games, assuming that it qualified as fair use. The opening and closing sequences were inspired by the gemological photomicrography of Eduard Gübelin and Danny J. Sanchez.
Music
Daniel Lopatin composed the original score. He also recorded several songs with the Weeknd for the film. They were not used, but he has production credits on the Weeknd's 2020 album After Hours. A soundtrack album was released on December 13, 2019, on CD, vinyl, and digital streaming services.
Release