One of the best movies of 2019 was the anxiety-inducing Safdie brothers film Uncut Gems. The movie is unrelenting with its tension, filled with stress, and worry as it follows Howard Ratner, jeweler, and gambling addict in New York's Diamond District as he seeks to pay off his debts and solve all his problems with the help of a rare and expensive gem.
Howard is played by Adam Sandler, who turns in one of the finest performances of both 2019 and his entire career. Overall, Howard is a pretty despicable person, even when you get invested in his self-destruction through the film. Over the film's two-hour runtime, Howard does a load of pretty awful things, so here are ten of the worst.
FIGHT WITH THE WEEKND
A significant point in the movie revolves around a Weeknd concert at some club. Howard goes there to get his gem back and ends up finding his girlfriend Julia in the bathroom, taking cocaine with The Weeknd.
Howard then gets in a fight with The Weeknd, pulling him out of the bathroom. Getting into a fistfight at a club is bad enough, but Howard does it out of jealousy, accusing the woman he is having an affair with, of cheating on him.
GETTING GOOEY TO PUSH UP THE AUCTION PRICE
When Howard gets to the place where his gem is getting put up for auction, he gets told that its value is far less than what he had initially believed. When this happens, Howard begins to get worried, and when his father-in-law Gooey turns up, he hatches a plan.
He asks Gooey to bid on the gem to drive up the price, promising Gooey that Kevin Garnett will buy it no matter what. Gooey is very hesitant, and rightfully so as he ends up getting stuck paying for the gem. Howard ultimately should not have gotten his family involved in his debt, and his plan to cheat ends up backfiring, and he gets paid by Garnett the original $175,000,000 anyway.
TREATING PEOPLE AWFULLY
Howard is the centerpiece of the movie, and there are very few scenes or shots where he is not on the screen and none that are unrelated to him. Anytime we see Howard interact with people, he generally mistreats them.
Whether it is the people in charge of the auction, his employees like Demany, Julia, or people in general, Howard is often rude, obnoxious, and ultimately extremely unlikable. Manners and being generally nice goes a long way.
DOING AND SAYING ANYTHING TO GET OUT OF A SITUATION
Howard is not a stupid man. He does stupid things, regularly, but is smart, sharp, and quick on his feet. It is this very quality that leads him to be somewhat of a weasel.
Howard is willing to do whatever it takes and say whatever necessary to get him out of a situation, whether he is lying or not. Look at when his life is threatened as he dangles out a window, he screams about having kids and says he will cancel the big bet, something he has no real intention of doing. There is also his denial of spending or betting any of Arno's money, pretending to be on the phone to Kevin Garnett to get paid for the gem, and a load of other examples of just being a treacherous person.
HAVING AN AFFAIR
The main character that the movie follows alongside Adam Sandler's Howard is Julia Fox's Julia, Howard's girlfriend. Except, she is not just his girlfriend, but his coworker and mistress, the woman of which he is having a longstanding affair.
Howard has a separate apartment where Julia lives and is having an affair that his wife, Dinah, knows about. Whether his wife knows about it, however, is irrelevant, the point is that he is having an affair. It is an awful thing to do, and one of the worst things Howard does.
THE TREATMENT OF BOTH HIS WIFE AND GIRLFRIEND
Speaking of his affair, Howard lives a double domestic life. He has a family, a wife and children, and a girlfriend, Julia. His treatment of both the women in his life is awful, not just in terms of the affair, and is a massive part of his self-destructive nature that the movie documents.
He has no romantic interest in Dinah, they plan on divorcing after Passover, he generally shows little care for her. That is until things with Julia deteriorate after the Weeknd incident, and Howard asks for her back, claiming he did not care for Julia - she insults him instead. As for Julia, Howard labels her as trash and uses her throughout the movie, whether it is to place a bet or emotional support.
PAWNING ITEMS THAT ARE NOT HIS
As has been alluded to multiple times, Howard is a liar and uses the people around him whether they know it or not. One of the biggest examples of this and something constant throughout the movie is Howard selling and pawning items that do not belong to him.
There are a few occasions of this. The two biggest though come when he pawns things belonging to Kevin Garnett and Demany. When Kevin Garnett wants Howard's gem, Howard takes his NBA Championship ring for collateral. As soon as Garnett leaves, Howard goes and pawns the ring, with the promise of returning it to Garnett when he gets the gem back. Then, near the end of the film, it is revealed Howard has 'loaned' out a bunch of stuff belonging to Demany, kept in the safe.
BETTING WITH MONEY THAT IS NOT HIS
Probably the primary source of all the anxiety and tension throughout the movie is Howard's debt. He owes money to a lot of people and manages to avoid and weasel his way out of a lot of altercations, but never seems to learn from the debt he has, and the trouble he finds himself in.
Howard takes money that he owes people and uses it for betting. He is a severe gambling addict, and despite owing insane amounts of money, he takes it and places bets. This can be seen in the first part of the movie when he puts a giant bet on the Boston Celtics and Kevin Garnett when he knows Arno is looking for the money Howard owes him.
HE IS A BAD DAD
Howard's kids pop up throughout the film, and in fact, the first encounter we see with them is a positive one as Howard facetimes his son Eddie to show him Kevin Garnett's ring. From there but, his skills as a father are subpar, even if he does love his kids.
He sits on the phone watching the Celtics game rather than reading to his son. Alongside that, he is open to his older son Eddie about his gambling and is even okay with him doing a bit of gambling. There is when he runs out of his daughter's play and gets locked in the trunk of his car. Also, when he sends Eddie into the bathroom of someone who Howard himself describes as a cokehead to avoid taking Eddie into his apartment.
HIS LAST BET
The worst thing Howard ever did was becoming a gambling addict. But it is his final bet that brings an accumulation of all the lousy stuff Howard does, with the added caveat of getting him shot in the head and killed.
Howard takes the money that Kevin Garnett pays him for his gem, gives it to Julia, and has her place a bet that would win him over a million dollars, solving all his problems. He locks Arno, as well as Arno's henchmen in his store's mantrap, and even though he wins the bet, one of the henchmen shoots Howard. His gambling addiction and that last bet cost Howard his life.