SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for the movie Uncut Gems. If you have not yet seen the film, proceed at your own risk!
If one is having a discussion about the wildest endings in 21st century cinema, Josh and Bennie Safdie’s Uncut Gems is a film that demands recognition. The third act is a masterclass of cinematic tension as Adam Sandler’s Howard Ratner traps a pair of loan shark goons in his jewelry shop’s security door while he waits to see if a life-changing bet pays off. Howard’s fate is ultimately sealed, as he wins the bet but gets shot in the head (dying with a smile on his face) – but there is one major question that the film doesn’t answer: what happens to Julia Fox’s Julia De Fiore and all of Howard’s winnings?
At the end of Uncut Gems, Julia doesn’t know what has happened to Howard, but she successfully avoids the hired thugs that have been dispatched to search for her at the casino where she placed Howard’s bet. Her final scene has her getting into a limo with plans on flying back to New York City to reunite with the protagonist, but it’s not revealed in the movie what happens when she learns that he is dead. There are many possibilities, but when I spoke with Julia Fox this month during the Los Angeles press day for HIM (as captured in the video above), she expressed a very positive outlook:
You know, I would like to say that a part of Julia gave half the money to his family and then took the rest .... There was a couple million, and I think she definitely made sure that the kids would be taken care of – but ultimately she went and went to Mexico and lived her best life. But she'll be back in the city soon.
Let’s be real: it’s a good person who takes a share of gambling winnings and gives them to the family of a man with whom she has been carrying on an affair – but Julia Fox evidently sees Julia De Fiore as a good person of that caliber.
For those who don’t recall, Julia is an employee at Howard’s store, and they have a complicated romantic relationship thanks to his infidelity and a bad mix of paranoia and jealousy. By the end of the film, however, she comes through for him in a big way by successfully placing his massive bet on the success of Kevin Garnett in the 2012 NBA Championships. She perhaps doesn’t “earn” every single cent of the winnings, but I suppose that’s why it’s fair to think that she gave some of the money to Howard’s family.
Uncut Gems is not a movie that is easy to watch multiple times (there’s only so much extreme tension that the body can take), but if you’re now feeling in the mood to revisit the insanity, there are plenty of options. The film is available for both digital rental and purchase from all major online outlets, and physical media fans would be doing themselves a favor by adding the Criterion Collection’s Uncut Gems 4K UHD to their collections.
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