By Robert Scucci
| Published
Most media about addiction centers on sex and drugs, or some combination of the two. While films like Requiem for a Dream or The Lost Weekend hold nothing back in their depictions of physical addiction, 2019’s Uncut Gems takes a different approach that has no qualms about showing just how dark the psychological rush can be to the afflicted individual. Written and directed by the Safdie brothers and starring Adam Sandler in his best dramatic role to date, we witness a man who’s by all measures physically healthy but so mentally unwell with his gambling addiction that the fallout he experiences is all the more brutal because he’s powerless to his habits despite his lucidity.
That lucidity is key here because we’re watching a man’s sense of judgment collapse in real time, and there’s no smoke and mirrors to dull the senses when Uncut Gems reaches its boiling point.
A Feature-Length Anxiety Attack
Adam Sandler is Howard Ratner, a gambling-addicted jeweler living in New York City. A slave to his addictive tendencies, Howard gets off on high-stakes sports betting and the thrill of the risk involved. Racking up unthinkable amounts of debt, he lives a double life. He has a magnificent suburban home with his wife Dinah (Idina Menzel), sons Eddie (Jonathan Aranbayev) and Beni (Jacob Igielski), and daughter Marcel (Noa Fisher). Dinah is on the verge of serving Howard divorce papers in Uncut Gems because of his affair with Julia (Julia Fox), who he provides an apartment for in Manhattan.
Questionable family dynamic aside, Howard’s jewelry store, KMH, functions more as a money-laundering front than anything else to fuel his extracurricular activities. Owing a substantial amount of money to his loan shark brother-in-law, Arno (Eric Bogosian), Howard is accosted by his associates, Phil (Keith William Richards) and Nico (Tommy Kominik), to make good on his debts but can’t help himself when he thinks he can make another big score through high-risk betting. Having borrowed $100,000 from Arno, Howard uses the funds to secure a rare Ethiopian black opal that could potentially be worth a million dollars.
Instead of settling his debts, Howard gets himself tangled in another scheme involving Kevin Garnett (playing a fictionalized version of himself) of the Boston Celtics, his 2008 NBA Championship ring, the titular uncut gem, and the hope that everybody trying to collect from him can be patient enough for his plan to fall into place because he’s about to score big. The problem is that Howard has been operating like this for a very long time. His “big wins” are few and far between, and he’s making powerful enemies in the process as he constantly gets hoisted by his own petard.
A Startlingly Accurate Depiction Of Addiction
Uncut Gems is a brutal watch, especially if you’ve ever witnessed addiction firsthand. Watching somebody become consumed by their unrelenting desire to get their next fix is the stuff of nightmares, and as a bystander, you’re often powerless to control their behavior despite your best efforts.
Sandler portraying a gambling addict turns Uncut Gems into a horrifying look at a man’s downfall because he’s not succumbing to substances that are physically addictive. There’s no Narcan for gambling, and even worse, Howard’s so far gone that he may as well be lying in an alley with a needle sticking out of his arm. The fact that he’s lucid and fully present in the sense that drugs aren’t clouding his mind makes it even harder to watch because we see a fully conscious depiction of his powerlessness to stop.
As Howard digs himself deeper in Uncut Gems, his entire life falls apart because all he cares about is winning big. The saddest part is that the high from a win is so short-lived that he’s already scheming about the next big score before the last one’s even over. Even more upsetting, the rush that comes from possibly losing is part of the addiction. It doesn’t matter if he wins or loses, so long as somebody can help bankroll his habit so he can keep doing what he does.
It’s an unrelenting spiral that has no end until somebody can stop him from making one disastrous decision after another, and like a true addict at the height of their consumption, he’s well past the point of being saved by a friendly intervention.
So Good It Will Ruin Your Life
Adam Sandler’s performance in Uncut Gems is worth its weight in rare Ethiopian opals because he fully commits to Howard’s constant anxiety. Losing himself in the role, we see Sandler at his most volatile, yet Howard is so lost in the proverbial sauce that he still thinks he’s in the right. Even when he finally earns the funds to settle his debts, there’s no reason to believe he’ll do the responsible thing; he’s far more likely to lose it all on another parlay. It’s an anxiety-inducing watch because everyone but him can see the consequences of his actions, but he lacks the self-awareness to course-correct, even if it means losing his family, his store, and his mistress.
I lost count of how many times I shouted “dude, just stop!” at my TV because Howard’s judgment is so clouded by his addiction that he can’t see past the potential of short-term gains, even as he racks up loss after loss. Uncut Gems is Sandler’s best dramatic work by a long shot, and given how much he throws himself into it, it’s easy to see why he’d rather belt out low-stakes comedies with his friends than keep portraying characters like Howard. I was exhausted for him, and I was just sitting on my couch watching a movie.
Uncut Gems is currently streaming on Max.
