The Safdie brothers’ crime thriller Uncut Gems was one of the best movies of 2019. The Adam Sandler film was snubbed at the 92nd Academy Awards, receiving exactly zero nominations, but it’s destined to become a cult classic.
Like most great movies, a large part of what made Uncut Gems work so well as a complete piece was that it had the perfect opening scene to introduce us to the story and the perfect final scene to bring it to a close. So, here are 5 great things about the opening of Uncut Gems, as well as 5 great things about the ending.
Opening: The Opening Shot Is Beautifully Cinematic
Uncut Gems opens with a helicopter shot of a mine in Ethiopia, courtesy of the movie’s brilliant cinematographer, Darius Khondji. Beyond this prologue, the movie is entirely set in New York. It’s a quintessential New York movie. Anyone who’s read anything about the movie before going in is expecting an urban setting.
So, on top of being beautifully cinematic, the opening shot is intriguing. How is this Ethiopian setting going to lead us to New York? With that question in mind, the viewer is hooked straight away.
Ending: It’s Just Ambiguous Enough
Ambiguous endings are a risky business in movies. If they’re too ambiguous, it can leave the audience feeling dissatisfied. The ending of Uncut Gems is just ambiguous enough.
We didn’t see if Arno’s other goon staking out the casino managed to catch up to Julia and steal the winnings. We didn’t see Dinah and the kids’ reaction to Howard’s death. We didn’t see whether or not the cops got to the store in time to catch Arno’s goons. But we know all the possible outcomes, leaving us to figure out our own version of it.
Opening: It Gives Us Another Perspective On Howard’s Business
For most of Uncut Gems, we follow Howard as a kind of middleman in the jeweling industry. He buys gems from miners who find them across the world and sells it to its eventual owner for a much-inflated price.
If we didn’t see the Ethiopian miners finding the opal in the opening scene, the movie’s depiction of Howard’s business wouldn’t have been as effective. Every step of the way, we could see Howard’s dealings from the perspective of the miners who initially found the opal, which made him seem more morally unscrupulous.
Ending: It Couldn’t Be Predicted
Most reviews of Uncut Gems have described it as a two-hour anxiety attack, and that’s a pretty apt summation of the viewing experience. All throughout the movie, it seemed as though Howard was headed for a grim fate, but it was unclear exactly what would happen. He had plenty of enemies, and he was constantly pushing his luck. Anything could’ve happened to Howard.
And despite this, the ending of the movie couldn’t be predicted. It was a very sharp left turn in the narrative that was as shocking for the audience as it was for Howard himself.
Opening: The Opening Titles Transitions To The Colonoscopy Seamlessly
After the 2010-set prologue in which the miners discover the opal, the camera slowly pulls in on the gem and the opening credits play over a fully computer-generated sequence. Following the opening titles, the camera slowly pulls back from Howard’s colon on a flickering monitor in the middle of a colonoscopy in 2012.
It can be tricky to pull off a transition from an opening scene about one group of characters in one setting to a subsequent scene about a totally different group of characters in a totally different setting, but in Uncut Gems, thanks to the title sequence, it’s seamless.
Ending: The Final Shot Mirrors The Opening Colonoscopy Shot
In the final moments of Uncut Gems, the camera slowly pulls in on the gunshot wound in Howard’s head. The camera actually goes inside the bullet hole and into a computer-animated sequence for the end credits.
This mirrors the beginning of the film, in which the camera pulled into the opal for a CG credits sequence and then pulled out of Howard’s colon for the two-year time jump.
Opening: We Meet Howard At His Most Vulnerable
The great thing about Howard Ratner as a protagonist is that, even though he’s traditionally unlikable, so many bad things happen to him that the audience still roots for him. The best way to make an audience root for a character who’s unlikable is to show them at their most vulnerable, and the Safdie brothers do this with Howard at every turn.
Whether he’s sobbing through a bloody nose in his office or getting locked in the trunk of his car naked, we’re constantly seeing Howard’s vulnerability. In the opening scene, we meet Howard at his absolute most vulnerable: in the middle of a colonoscopy.
Ending: The Plot And Real Events Are Deftly Woven Together
The Safdies had to write a few versions of Uncut Gems, because basketball players kept dropping in and out of the project. Eventually, Kevin Garnett signed on to play himself in the movie and it became a period piece set in 2012, when he was in New York for the NBA playoffs.
Throughout Uncut Gems, Garnett’s games are mixed into the plot, and in the movie’s final scene, the fictional story and the real events are deftly woven together for a satisfying payoff.
Opening: A Pivotal Later Scene Recontextualizes It
The opening scene is brilliantly recontextualized by a later scene in which Kevin Garnett presses Howard for information about his acquisition of the opal. It’s worth $1 million and that’s how much he plans to sell it for, but he bought it from the Ethiopian miners for $100,000.
From K.G.’s point of view, Howard just ripped off the miners for the precious gem they found and he chastises him for it. This leads into Howard’s great monologue about how getting good deals on gems is how he feels a sense of victory in his life like K.G. does when he wins a game.
Ending: Howard Gets A Happy Ending...Then It’s Taken Away
What’s worse than a protagonist not getting a happy ending? A protagonist getting a happy ending – all of their dreams coming true in a moment of true, cathartic glory – and then, as quickly as that happiness was given to them, it’s taken away.
At the end of Uncut Gems, Howard’s reckless gambling pays off as he wins big on a sports bet. Then, he lets his brother-in-law and his hired goons back into the shop, having locked them in the mantrap for the entire game, and one of the goons shoots him in the head.