Yahoo News Uncut Gems ending and its real-life connection, explained
Note: Contains spoilers for Uncut Gems.
It might have been snubbed at the Oscars, but Uncut Gems is still absolutely worth all the stress it puts you through.
The thriller – released by Netflix internationally and by A24 in the US – stars Adam Sandler as New York City jeweller Howard Ratner, a gambling addict who attempts a series of high-stakes bets in pursuit of that one big win.
It's a compelling and anxiety-filled ride and while it's not based on a true story, it does have a meta link to real-life events that all comes to a head in its intense finale.
We're about to head into spoilers, so don't read on if you haven't seen Uncut Gems yet.
When we first meet Howard Ratner (after his colonoscopy, that is), things certainly seem to be on the up. He's got his hands on a rare black opal – the titular uncut gem – that he thinks will sell for $1 million at an upcoming auction,
But before that happens, Ratner gives the opal to basketball player Kevin Garnett (playing himself in a meta role) who believes it'll bring him good luck, with Ratner keeping Garnett's championship ring as collateral.
Being a gambling addict (and $100k in debt), Ratner quickly pawns that ring to place an ambitious bet on Garnett's game that night. It actually pays off and he looks set for a big payday.
Unfortunately for Ratner, loan shark Arno (Eric Bogosian) – who also happens to be his brother-in-law – stopped that bet from happening because Ratner owes him $100,000. (The fact that's Ratner's gambling with the little money he has is offensive to kingpin Arno).
It's OK though because there's that auction coming up, remember. Ratner even turns down a cash offer from Garnett to keep the opal, confident of the opal getting at least $1 million at the auction.
When he arrives, though, he's told the value of the opal is closer to $200,000 and during the auction itself, Ratner's attempts to get his father-in-law to bid against Garnett to push up the price fail.
His father-in-law wins the auction, so Ratner pays him back and still has the opal, but still owes Arno $100,000. Again though, Ratner has a chance of a happy ending as Garnett again offers $175,000 for the opal – which he accepts.
But Ratner can't help himself. Convinced that the opal brings Garnett good luck, he gets his long-suffering girlfriend Julia (Julia Fox) to head to a casino to place all of the $175,000 on a huge bet on Garnett's game that night.
When Arno and his henchman Phil (Keith Williams Richards) and Nico (Tommy Kominik) come to collect their money from Ratner's jewellery store, he locks them in the store's security vestibule for the duration of the game.
Remarkably, Ratner's bet comes off and he wins well over $1 million, but Ratner's joy is short-lived as a pissed-off Phil shoots him in the head, before killing his boss Arno too, who had a change of heart having witnessed Ratner's bet come off.
We see Julia collect the money from the casino and head off into an unknown future. Thanks to a call from Ratner's worried wife Dinah (Idina Menzel), we hear police sirens near the store as the camera pans into Ratner's bullet wound.
What non-basketball fans might not realise is that the games that Garnett is involved in during the movie were real-life games.
Set in 2012, the movie features two games from the NBA playoffs of that year: Game 3 and Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semi-final between Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers.
As we see in Uncut Gems, Garnett helped the Celtics to victory in both games and the overall series, although they would go on to lose the final against Miami Heat.
So the games you see in the movie actually did happen, and it was a challenge for directors Josh and Benny Safdie to find the right games.
"We needed it to be a certain type of game that represented a 'gem game'," Benny told The Ringer, referring to Garnett having such a great game that it would be like him being inspired by the (potentially) magical opal.
"The narrative of the story revolved around a good game, bad game, good game," Josh added. "And we weren't affecting the NBA footage at all, so it had to happen in real life. So we had to then find those games in succession with one another."
An extra level of difficulty came from the fact that the movie also stars The Weeknd as himself.
"We basically went through every game on Basketball-Reference.com from 2011, because the Weeknd was a part of the movie and that was as early as we could possibly go, all the way through," Josh told EW.
"Like if we had some games like that in Brooklyn [Garnett was traded to the Nets in 2013], then it was going to be Brooklyn, and it would have been geographically easy. But we ended up seeing those couple playoff games, and allowing a playoff series to be the centre of the movie felt so much more appropriate."
Uncut Gems is now available to watch on Netflix worldwide, excluding the US where it is still in cinemas.
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