Adam Sandler plays Howard Ratner, a jeweler in New York City’s Diamond District who cannot stop betting. Uncut Gems runs 136 minutes and never lets him — or us — settle. The Safdie brothers, Josh and Benny, wrote the film with Ronald Bronstein and directed it. It is a crime thriller, and it moves like one long fall.
Trailer, via A24.
A Black Opal From the Welo Mine
The plot turns on a stone. In 2010, Ethiopian Jewish miners pull a rare black opal from the Welo mine in Ethiopia. Two years later it reaches Howard’s store, KMH, smuggled from Africa. Howard owes Arno, his loan shark brother-in-law, $100,000. The opal is his way out.
Then Kevin Garnett walks in. Demany, Howard’s business associate, brings the basketball star to the shop, and Garnett becomes obsessed with the opal. He insists on borrowing it as a good-luck talisman for that night’s game. Howard agrees, taking Garnett’s 2008 NBA Championship ring as collateral.
That decision sets everything else in motion. Howard pawns the ring and wins a six-way parlay on Garnett’s performance. The bet should have paid $600,000.
Arno Puts a Stop on the Bet
It pays nothing. Arno placed a stop on the bet because it was made with money Howard owed him. Arno and his goons, Phil and Nico, ambush Howard at his daughter’s school play. They strip him naked and lock him in the trunk of his car. He has to call his wife Dinah for help.
The film keeps a running ledger of what Howard owes and what he might win. The table below sets the two sides against each other.
| Item | Amount | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Loan owed to Arno | $100,000 | Unpaid |
| Winning parlay | $600,000 | Stopped by Arno |
| Garnett’s offer for the opal | $175,000 | Refused by Howard |
Howard’s refusal of Garnett’s $175,000 is the tell. He does not want to be made whole. He wants the windfall.
Julia, the Weeknd, and the Bathroom Fight
Howard’s domestic life is split. Dinah has agreed to divorce him after Passover. Julia, his girlfriend, works at KMH. At a nightclub party hosted by the Weeknd, Howard tries to get the opal back from Demany and learns Garnett still has it. He finds Julia snorting cocaine in a bathroom with the Weeknd and fights him. He confronts her, feeling betrayed, and demands she move out of his apartment.
Sandler’s performance is the reason the film holds. It is against type, and it is the best work of his career. He plays Howard not as a schemer but as a man who genuinely believes the next score is coming. The tagline — “This is how I win” — is a threat and a prayer at once.
A Cast Built From Refusals
The supporting cast is deep. LaKeith Stanfield plays Demany. Julia Fox plays Julia De Flore. Idina Menzel plays Dinah. Eric Bogosian plays Arno. Judd Hirsch plays Gooey. Garnett plays himself. The Weeknd appears in his debut role.
The film was almost a different movie. The Safdies first approached Sandler in 2010 and again in 2015; his manager rejected the script. Jonah Hill was cast as Howard in May 2017, but dropped out over scheduling and directed Mid90s instead. Sandler signed on in April 2018 after watching Good Time. Kobe Bryant was the original model for the basketball role, with a plan to build around the night he broke the Madison Square Garden single-game scoring record. Bryant’s agent said he was interested only in directing. Kobe Bryant, Amar’e Stoudemire, and Joel Embiid were all considered. Three hundred actresses auditioned for Julia.
Daniel Lopatin composed the score. Filming ran from September to November 2018.
What the Film Is Actually About
Uncut Gems premiered at the 46th Telluride Film Festival on August 30, 2019. A24 gave it a limited release on December 13 and a wide release on December 25, with Netflix handling other territories. The National Board of Review named it one of the top ten films of 2019, and it has appeared on lists of the greatest films of the 21st century.
The box office and the acclaim are not the interesting part. What matters is that the Safdies built a film where the audience wants Howard to stop and Howard cannot. Every scene is a transaction, and every transaction is a bet on a future that never arrives.
The Garnett bet is the cleanest illustration. Howard wins it. He wins it completely, on a six-way parlay, and it is taken from him by a man he owes. That is the whole movie in one move: the win is real, and it does not belong to him.
Uncut Gems is a great film because it refuses the redemption arc that Sandler’s career trained audiences to expect. There is no lesson, no bottom, no morning after. There is a man in a trunk, and then a man at an auction, and then whatever comes next.
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