Uncut Gems

Spoiler-Free Recommendation: This is a movie-lover’s movie, but there’s room for more in the audience. It’s a thrill to witness—if you’re locked in you can feel the rush; buy-in to the stakes. It’s unconventional. The intangibles here are probably polarizing, but I love it.

Pace, tension, a welcome anxiety (?), characters (a la ‘this guy’s a real character!’). Time: the visible grit over an adjacent-to-present setting gave me nostalgia for a parallel universe. The music only took me out of the story once and I didn’t care for the end credits song.

I care about the relationships sprawling from this man; even as brief as his older son’s every glance at his father (both as a hero and a loser). With the context of everything that has happened in the film prior, Howard’s defining moment for me was when he checked his weight. I did not see Adam Sandler in this movie—he wasn’t there. It was Howard. I particularly like the bits they didn’t tell us which added an appropriate complexity (e.g. his relationship with Demany, curly-gray-Rolex guy). I will say, I was not here for any cameos, sports or otherwise, but I felt all served the story well.

[I took the ending personally—this isn’t the place for that kind of thought, but I had to get it out of my head to keep writing]

Circling the ending in my head I could almost accept: the best this kind of guy could do is die with his debts paid. I think it sounds nice but he can’t even pay them!—the principle?—not a man of too many (conventional) principles—did he prove his point? I guess you just get what comes to you whether you deserve it or not; and whether he deserved anything or not is what made this so compelling (aside from it being masterfully crafted).