‘Uncut Gems’ explained: what does the ending mean?
Adam Sandler has never been better than he was in Josh and Benny Safdie’s Uncut Gems, an excruciatingly intense crime thriller that succeeds in both gradually turning the screws on the viewer until it becomes almost unbearable while also turning a wholly unlikeable protagonist into a charismatic tour-de-force it’s hard not to root for.
The protagonist, Howard Ratner, might be obnoxious, selfish, and entirely self-absorbed, but it’s difficult not to feel some sense of elation when his risky bet pays off spectacularly. Unfortunately, he subsequently takes a bullet to the head for his troubles before his jewellery store gets looted by his executioners.
It’s a downbeat ending to an exhilarating film, but it’s not as if he didn’t have it coming in a way. Howard is as self-destructive as they come, and his gambling addiction leads to some truly terrible decisions. He alienates his family, engages in an extra-marital affair, and regularly risks everything he has, but somehow comes out on the other side intact, at least until the final scene.
Thanks to NBA superstar Kevin Garnett becoming so enamoured by his rare opal, Howard opts against paying off his debts to the circling sharks, imprisoning Keith William Richards’s Phil, Eric Bogosian’s Arno, and Tommy Kominik’s Nico behind his shop’s security doors to see if his gambit pays off. Miraculously, it does, but the underworld figures respond to his lucrative win by gunning him down.
Even though he meets his demise, the grin plastered across Howard’s face is reflective of his existence at large; it’s the thrill of the chase and the highs of coming out on top that keep him going, not the riches that prospectively lie at the end of the tunnel. If he hadn’t been killed, then he’d have carried on that cycle in perpetuity, illuminated by the opening and closing of the shots mirroring each other by careening through first a diamond mine and then the hole in his skull.
There’s an intentional symmetry there to illustrate that the promise of the ultimate victory is what drives him. The opal may have been responsible for everything that befell him, but he won $1.2million on a bet he placed precisely because of it, with his last moments of life placing him in a state of bliss. He lost everything in the end, but from the perspective of his addictive personality, he went out on his sword by being proven right.
Howard lives in a constant state of feeling unfulfilled, whether it’s with his work or marriage, and that moment of euphoria that proves to be his last is the very thing he’s been desperately striving to attain. Uncut Gems is a story about the complexities of human nature, the pitfalls of greed, the highs and lows of addiction, and the inevitable circle of life. The opening and closing shots cement that, but the Safdies confirmed to The Wrap the allegory is every bit as subtle as it appears at first glance.
“The characters who populate this world might be a little rough around the edges, but you can see the value in them. That’s what’s important about life, seeing through all that garbage,” Josh said. He was even more forthright, simply offering, “That’s why the movie is called Uncut Gems.”
