A lot of content nowadays is generated just to trash on someone else’s creativity. The worse a show is, the more people will make a video about it. It’s not my intent to be that person. My Enneagram reviews of unsuccessful shows are because I hope to find an answer. Usually it’s because I love the content and am disappointed that it failed. I believe that a great Story Enneagram structure will lead to a great movie.
Sometimes, though, a subjective reaction will overcome the objective reality of a solid Enneagram.
From my unused files, a case in point:
I can’t say I enjoyed Uncut Gems, 2019. This is a well-crafted movie, heavy with intentions. The filmmakers knew what they wanted to do. No, my dislike comes from the character and plot. Again, well-acted. I just don’t want to watch this protagonist. I don’t really care about his drama. He’s repugnant. I’m pretty sure this is what everyone was aiming for and they succeeded. Hat tip to them, and please never put this movie in front of me again.
LEFTOVER NINE
The movie opens in Ethiopia, 2010, as if it were a Raiders or Jurassic Park franchise. Locals work a gem mine under hazardous conditions. A man with a wounded, bleeding leg is pulled from a cave-in. The crowd is restless, angry. Miners still underground chip out a rock loaded with gems (or a single gem peeking through the layers). It’s shiny.
ONE
We dive into the gem. Colors, music, the kaleidoscope — it’s like an outer space nebula. This is a very particular shot. This gem — The Rock — is like Sauron’s Ring. It plays a protagonist of sorts, a force with an impact on agency. You could even say it has a magical influence. All of this is suggested in this shot.
Then the gem interior cross fades seamlessly into a colon interior. (Yes. I know.) Howard is undergoing a colonoscopy. Afterwards, the credits run as we follow him forward with his day. It’s New York City, 2012, Howard runs a sketchy jewelry store, and disorder emanates from him like a noxious gas. Even for the city, he’s loud and brash.
TWO
Into the store comes Kevin Garnett, playing himself quite well. You don’t have to know who he is (I didn’t) to recognize a major sports star has entered Howard’s establishment. A little back and forth occurs until a large package arrives. Howard opens it to reveal fish on ice. Inside the fish (obviously smuggled) is The Rock. Howard is ecstatic. He shows it to KG, explaining it’s an opal mined by Ethiopian Jews.
The Rock, arriving into our modern urban world, is the Two Trouble.
THREE
Well, KG has to have it. I’m okay with this whole magic rock thing. The opening shot in the One has planted all this. KG feels a connection, trades his Celtic championship ring as collateral, and borrows The Rock.
FOUR
Up until this point I’m not sure what to make of Howard. Is he just the city on steroids, or is he genuinely despicable?
The Four makes it clear that Howard is the latter.
I honestly don’t want to go over the details. I didn’t enjoy his journey while watching and I don’t need to recap. He gambles, he cheats on his wife, he’s threatened by loan shark goons. Throughout it all he shows no remorse, has no idea why all this trouble is coming to him. Every minute of his day is filled with suffering, emotional and physical, and he doesn’t even recognize that’s what’s happening. He’d have to pause and think, which he can’t do. It’s not that he’s avoiding a reckoning of himself, it’s that it’s not even in his character to know what a reckoning is.
Meanwhile, he’s trying to get The Rock back from KG. Howard thinks he’ll auction the uncut gem for a million dollars, but he’s got to get the item to the auction house first. The Rock has brought KG good luck, seemingly. His basketball game was excellent.
SWITCH
A number of things go Howard’s way finally. His colon polyp is benign. He gives Julia, his mistress, an ultimatum to move out of his city apartment, and . . .
KG returns The Rock.
FIVE
Now Howard, with his wife and three kids, has a family dinner. He’s sort of a father. He asks his wife to reconsider her divorce filing. (She laughs at him.) And he comes home and takes out the garbage. Domesticated or defeated? It’s a long shot of him dragging cans to the street!
He’s in a suit, he’s cleaned up, he’s going to his Rock auction.
And then he’s yelling and brash again. He’s scheming. Julia comes back to him.
I never believed he had reformed. He’d been kicked and taken a breather is more what it seemed. He’s a man given a chance to change, but you can’t say he rejects the chance. He doesn’t think that much. He just sees fortune change and rolls on. It’s as if he has no agency, which is completely false. That’s how he sees it, though. We’ve all met those people who don’t recognize their role in their own suffering.
Or, maybe it’s all The Rock. He’s had it this whole time. Did it bring him fortune? It does bring him enough money to clear his debt and the threat against him, but it’s not the amount he expected. He sabotages the auction.
Maybe all of his bad luck is due to The Rock. It’s a taint that brings him down. All of these answers are implied by the movie.
SIX
KG, thwarted from buying The Rock at auction, now arranges to buy it directly from Howard. The money is enough, again, to clear Howard’s debt.
Regardless of Howard’s next actions, KG has The Rock.
SEVEN
The movie definitely suggests that The Rock belongs with KG. He presses Howard about the Ethiopian mine. How much did Howard pay, especially as he expected a million dollar return? Howard’s cheapness may have cursed his relationship with the gem.
Howard’s decision to exploit the miners, which happened offscreen and long ago, comes to fruition here. KG’s decision to press him about The Rock’s provenance brings all of that into the light. The Leftover Nine at the beginning was memorable enough that it resonates in this moment.
After all this, Howard decides to take KG’s money, the amount the loan shark wants, and bet it all on KG’s game that night.
EIGHT
Howard watches the game on his store’s TV while the goons are locked in his glassed-in entryway. Julia has taken the money and placed the bet at a casino.
KG plays well and every one of Howard’s bets hits. Julia collects the money.
Ecstatic, Howard lets the goons free to celebrate. The one goon shoots him dead.
Everyone’s happy. KG has his lucky rock, Julia (thinking Howard’s alive) has the winnings. The goon is happy to have the problem of this very annoying person solved.
NINE
Close on Howard’s bleeding wound. It calls back to the bleeding miner’s leg at the very opening. And then we go deeper, and the wound becomes The Rock interior, like a nebula. Space becomes the bookend shots.
CRITICAL NOTES
Who suffers? Well, obviously I did. A movie about chaos and a lead who never changes is tedious, regardless of how well-made. Ugliness, violence — this is Dorian Gray’s portrait come to life. This is not how I prefer to spend my time.
And Howard suffers. As I mentioned, every disaster visited upon him is a result of his actions, yet that light bulb never goes off over his head. The universe has it in for him, if he even gives the topic consideration. He’s a walking heart attack of anxiety and anger. That he’s shot at the end is somewhat satisfying for me. Good. I’m with the goon: end this guy’s story. We all like a plot to exhibit a sense of justice. Wishing death on your hero is not the kind of justice I want to watch. Such a horrible character, amped and scattered, doesn’t deserve a platform. There is no love here.
Can suffering be false? The wrong kind? This is more, actually, of a lesson in cause and effect. Be an unmitigated ass and bad things follow. Because Howard loves nothing — he covets, which is not the same — suffering is impossible. Just pain disconnected from any sense of meaning and purpose.