There’s an old Jewish proverb that says money can buy you everything but good sense. For Howard Ratner, that certainly seems to be the case, since all the money in the world never seems to be quite enough to get rid of his problems.
Howard borrows money from everyone but pays it back to no one. He tells them he’s broke. But really, he’s just placing another bet with a bookie in the hope of making a profit on his loans. His brother-in-law, Arno, is so sick of it that he hires some goons to follow Howard and shake him down for the cash.
In addition to taking advantage of his in-laws, Howard’s cheating on his wife. She knows it, and she can’t stand him. “I think you might be the most annoying person I’ve ever met,” she tells him. However, she’s agreed to wait until after Passover to tell the kids they’re separating.
Unfortunately, none of this has any moral bearing on Howard’s life. What he lacks in good sense, he makes up for in giving people the runaround, a habit he keeps up until the very end.
An argument could perhaps theoretically be made that Howard’s story as it’s told here should be received as some kind of cautionary tale about—in no particular order—greed, addiction, deception and narcissism. The key word in that last sentence, though, is theoretically, because looking for a moral or even a hint of redemption in Uncut Gems is taxing, painful work indeed, as we’ll see.
An athlete becomes obsessed with an opal, believing it to have magical powers that make him a better basketball player.
A Jewish family celebrates a traditional Passover feast with readings from the Torah. Men wear yakamas, and a bat mitzvah is mentioned. Howard makes a joke about the Jews being God’s chosen people and another about the plague that caused the deaths of the firstborn in Egypt.
Two people wear cross necklaces. Someone pawns a jewel-encrusted crucifix bearing Michael Jackson’s image instead of Christ’s.
A young woman wearing lingerie is secretly watched by her (much older) boyfriend (who’s hiding in the same room without her knowledge). She takes pictures of herself doing sexual things and sends them to him. They exchange several sexually explicit texts before he jumps out to scare her. They make out and fall onto a couch.
A couple kisses several times. A woman wearing underwear invites her boyfriend to cuddle with her. A man attempts to kiss a woman and gets her to touch him inappropriately. Several scantily clad people dance in a nightclub. A woman unzips her skirt to reveal a tattoo on her backside.
A man is stripped naked by a couple of goons (nothing critical is seen). We see men shirtless and in a towel. A woman tries on a dress she owned when she was 13 to see if it still fits.
A painting of two nude women hangs in Howard’s apartment. A large man on TV lifts his shirt to reveal his stomach. An old man hits on a young woman and invites her to his room.
Two people are shot point-blank in the head after being threatened. A young man is carried out of a mine with a heavily bleeding leg injury. Several people push each other and argue as someone pours alcohol on the injury to cleanse it. A man is hung outside of a window by his ankles.
Howard starts two fights in a nightclub, and several people are punched and manhandled. He also starts a fight at his daughter’s school, biting one of his opponents and leaving a mark before being thrown in the trunk of a car. Two men gang up on a third, ripping his shirt and knocking him to the ground.
Someone gets punched in the throat for lying. When he chases down his attacker, he gets hit in the nose by a bodyguard and thrown into a fountain. Later, his girlfriend pulls bloody tissues out of his nose and attempts to clean his still-injured face.
A guy gets slapped in the face. A woman pretends to punch someone so they will flinch. Someone threatens to smash another character’s head through a glass display case. A bottle of alcohol is intentionally dumped into a fish tank in order to kill the fish.
Uncut Gems is among the most profane movies Plugged In has ever screened, with somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 total profanities. The f-word is used nearly 500 times (including at least a dozen instances where it is preceded by “mother”). The s-word is heard more 60 times and the n-word 30 times. “A–,” “a–hole” and “b–ch” are heard about 10 times each, and “d–n,” “p-ss,” “d–k” and “p—y” are heard 3 to 4 times each as well. God’s name is misused nearly 50 times (with about half of those misuses paired with “d–n” or “d–mit”). Christ’s name is also taken in vain about 10 times.
Other crudities and vulgarities include “skank,” the Yiddish term “schmuck,” and several references to sex and male anatomy. Songs in the background include still more curse words, and someone makes a crude hand gesture.
Two people snort cocaine in a dance club bathroom. Flaming champagne bottles are carried through a club while many people drink. A group does shots while watching a basketball game. Wine is drunk at a Passover celebration. Someone smokes a cigar, and another smokes a cigarette. A man drinks liquor in an office.
Howard borrows money from multiple people, including his brother-in-law and father-in-law. Despite promises to pay them back, whenever he gets or earns money, he either spends it on material things or gambles it away. He is involved in several illegal get-rich-quick schemes (he gives away several fake Rolexes and has a valuable opal delivered to him hidden inside a dead fish). He is also followed by the henchmen of his brother-in-law throughout the film, pawns off items that don’t belong to him and lies to avoid the people he owes money to.
Howard pays a group of Ethiopian men $100,000 for a gemstone that he secretly believes is worth $1 million, ripping them off. When an auction house appraises the gem, they tell him it is worth much less than he thought, and he tries to bully them into lying about the price. When this strategy fails, he takes advantage of his father-in-law to jack up the bids.
Howard and his wife discuss plans to divorce after Passover. She knows he’s cheating on her and refuses to give him a second chance, since he continually neglects his family. (He misses most of his daughter’s school play because he picks a fight with people to whom he owes money; and he is too distracted by the outcome of a basketball game to say goodnight to his son.) Howard also says that his children are becoming morons due to a lack of “culture.”
A video of a colonoscopy is shown while a doctor narrates what is happening. A teenager finds out that his dad is cheating on his mom. Howard’s son places a bet with his friend on the outcome of a basketball game. A man accidentally breaks a glass display case by leaning on it too hard. One of Howard’s employees quits because of the drama that happens at Howard’s shop. A woman is repeatedly berated by her boss for showing up late to work.
Uncut Gems delivers a brutally accurate portrayal of someone with a deep-seated gambling addiction (among other issues). It’s devastating to watch him repeat the same mistakes over and over. I personally sat on the edge of my seat waiting for him to change, wanting things to get better, holding my breath for this time to be enough. But it never came.
It was a relief when the credits rolled because at least things finally couldn’t get any worse.
Howard’s cursing (more on that in a moment), infidelity and gambling are serious issues. They cause problems for his employees and set a bad example for his kids. (His oldest son uses a few choice curse words, places a bet of his own and is profoundly disappointed when he discovers that his dad is cheating on his mom.)
Howard’s lack of remorse or redemption can also feel painfully real for anyone who’s watched a friend or loved one continuously make addiction-driven choices. However, that doesn’t mean they have to watch it onscreen as well.
A postscript: About that profanity … Uncut Gems may have slightly fewer profanities overall than heavyweight swear champ The Wolf of Wall Street. (Maybe.) But Gems is also 45 minutes shorter, which means that this critically acclaimed Adam Sandler tragicomedy likely features the most vulgarity per minute of any film Plugged In has ever reviewed. For those scoring at home, that works out to about 5.2 profanities per minute, or one every 12 seconds or so for 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
