Uncut jewels movie#

They were like, “I don’t get it.” I was like, “Well, this is my take on it.” You want to know my take on it? Josh Safdie: I was trying to explain the whole “gems uncut, cut my gems” thing to someone.

Uncut jewels movie#

“We say, ‘Oh we had to do this, we had to do that.’ We didn’t actually have to shoot with a real basketball player and use real games, we chose to.” Throughout the course of a conversation with Vulture, the brothers discuss their alternate Uncut Gems plots, the real-life Diamond District figures they befriended, and, of course, what the name of their movie even means. “All of this is a box we put ourselves into,” Benny says. Each time, the story of an impossibly lucky gem was reimagined to fit the particulars of each NBA star’s career. I believe them when they tell me that they rewrote their movie several times, first basing Howard’s saga around Amar’e Stoudemire, then Kobe Bryant, and then Joel Embiid, before finally landing on Garnett. A question about a set can easily prompt an erratic anecdote about the time they walked in on some guy curing meat in a random building in midtown Manhattan. Gems’ directors, the Safdie brothers - Benny, 33, and Josh, 35 - talk like the movies they make: they’ll jump up to act out a story or pull out a cell phone to show a photo, speaking fast and a lot as they try to keep up with their next thought. Will Kevin come back with the black opal Howard loaned him as a token of good luck? If Howard can auction it off, is it worth as much as he says? What’s the Weeknd doing here? When a middleman walks NBA power forward Kevin Garnett into Howard’s jewelry store, every moment after feels like a miracle and a curse all at once. A pack of debt collectors are on his trail, but he compulsively - romantically, maniacally - keeps placing bets. It’s the Diamond District in 2012 when our hero, Howard Ratner ( Adam Sandler), is trying to play the part of 47th Street’s slickest salesman. It revels in its own excess: every single character is talking at once, trying to buy or sell or cut a deal. There’s a certain rhythm to Uncut Gems and the way it reaches for things - for basketball, for jewels, for wins and losses, for takeout from Smith & Wollensky. Do I have depth underneath the surface? Yes, my gems are uncut.”

The Safdies brothers explain their new movie’s title: “Am I non-judgemental? Yes, that means my gems are uncut.