Coastal View News
Netflix just started streaming the critically-acclaimed “Uncut
Gems”—way ahead of normal schedule, too. What a gift. Great news, right!?
Well, let me ask: Do you like anxiety? Not like
action-thriller anxiety. More like family-shouting-at-Thanksgiving anxiety. Is
that your cup of tea? Not mine. Not right now. I’m working to keep my own
COVID-and-world-disaster-and-annoying-kids-stuck-at-home heart attacks at bay.
I’m not eager to watch someone else’s coronary for two-plus hours.
If you, on the other hand, are more worried that your
blood pressure is needlessly low,
thank Netflix, because they’re now streaming your cure.
Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler) is a jewelry shop owner and
a gambling addict. He sells super high end stuff, then immediately bets the
profits on sports. He routinely replaces a lot of cash with a lot of debt. And upset
creditors. And an estranged wife (also, a moody girlfriend). He’s kind of like
King Midas in reverse, except worse—surely he’d rather have ended up with an
innocuous pile of straw.
Ratner’s luck seems to turn around when a much
anticipated package arrives at his shop—an extremely rare, extremely big, extremely
valuable Ethiopian black opal that he ordered. It is worth a fortune—maybe as
much as $1 million.
Right around the same time, Boston Celtics superstar
Kevin Garnett walks into his shop. Ratner is so excited about the opal and
Garnett, and Garnett and the opal, that he can’t resist bringing the precious
gem out. Garnett is transfixed. He wants it!
Ratner says no—he’s planning to sell it at auction. But Garnett
begs Ratner to let him at least borrow the opal for the night. He thinks the
gem is lucky, and he has a big playoff game coming up. Ratner reluctantly
agrees, taking Garnett’s championship ring as collateral.
Ratner then pawns the ring and bets the money on Garnett
and the Celtics to have a big game. Same old same old—though this time the
stakes are considerably higher (both literally and figuratively).
Luckily, Ratner wins big. Or maybe not. Does he? Well, it’s
complicated. And it’s cycles of excitement, confusion, anger, despair, relief,
hope, excitement, confusion … Ratner scrambles to clean up his own messes while
simultaneously creating more. He’s like the little Dutch boy who put his finger
in the dike, except he is the one creating the holes and it’s more holes than he
has fingers and toes to plug.
Hence the anxiety.
“Uncut Gems” is exhausting. It is also well acted,
written, and composed. And while you might not exactly be hungry for more
stress (I wasn’t), this movie and its emotional punch are also easier to get
nowadays. Anxiety is familiar. Especially if you’re vulnerable. Especially if
you’ve got your own issues. And especially if you feel like you live in a
system that only eggs on the worst in us all.
Ratner has issues. He’s imperfect. He’s a gambling
addict, impulsive, prone to anger, unfaithful, vain, and greedy. But he also
tries to make things better. He tries to fix things. Unfortunately he lives in
a world—the same one we live in—that lures him into risk with the thought that
things could be better only to crush him with its own unrelenting, voracious
greed. Ratner is annoying, but human. And while tragedy might not feel like a
very appealing genre right now, it is, at the same time, undeniably a propos.
