Asserting that Holes and Uncut Gems can, and should be, put in conversation with one another may seem completely unfounded. That is why, I have so nobly taken up the task of highlighting why these two bodies of work, brilliant in their own right, have more in common than you would first assume. This galaxy brain moment was offset by a piece of work by my dear friend Elisar. This fan art dredged up childhood nostalgia which intersected with my mind’s fixation on Uncut Gems and alas, this piece came to be.
SPOILERS FOR EACH FILM TO FOLLOW
The central protagonists of each film — Stanley Yelnats and Howard Ratner both find their fates bound to a sports magnate. Stanley’s alleged theft of the shoes of baseball player, Clyde “Sweet Feet” Livingston are what lands him in the juvenile work camp where his life takes on a new trajectory. While in Stanley’s case, it was a result of sheer circumstance, Howard purposefully intertwines his fate with Kevin Garnett’s — centring bet after bet on Garnett’s performance. Garnett also ends up entangled with him via their dispute over the titular Uncut Gem.
The central narrative arc of each film can be characterized as a treasure hunt, offset when these characters directly and indirectly come into contact with the sports players. Their respective socioeconomic statuses’ characterize the ways said players impact their lives. Stanley is undeniably a victim of being a lower class teen, disposable in the face of a baseball legend whereas Howard has status enough to enable him to rub shoulders with the likes of Kevin Garnett.
In Holes, luck is a sporadic thing, which possesses mythic relevance and in Uncut Gems, it is something treated callously like a force that can be easily wielded to serve whomever.
Holes communicates this through the macro — taking us through how people are bound to their ancestor’s choices and the discernible ways the results manifest in their lives. Uncut Gems does this through the macro as well, the black opal, the Uncut Gem in question, being the product of a tragic incident on an Ethiopian mining site. This gives you a sense of the opal being linked to negative karmic energy. It further stresses its point through the micro — more than anything this film is a character study of Howard Ratner. We come to know not just him, but how the people in his life figure into his environment, witnessing in real time the fallout from his actions.
Luck and karmic energy are traced through multiple generations in Holes, characters beyond just Stanley have a strong sense of how they figure into the grand scheme of the universe. The Warden inherited the task of trying to locate the famed treasure her grandfather dedicated his life to. Stanley’s newfound companion, Hector Zeroni, just so happens to be the distant relative of the woman who cursed the Yelnats family to an eternity of bad luck. This inscribes within the film a synchronicity, so even the most minute of plot details take on new meaning as the narrative lays out to us how fate led to these moments.
Holes elevates luck and karmic energy to a sacred status whereas in Uncut Gems, these things are afforded no weight. Howard is relentlessly in pursuit of the next big win, regardless of how that may manifest. The film’s unrelenting pace, which lets up for no one, mirrors the singular drive of the protagonist to score time and time again. His life is relatively idyllic despite the ever looming threat of loan sharks, who are more or less a non-factor to him. Our understanding of him isn’t embodied via distant figures of the past, but those who are present in his life, which feels true to the urgency with which he navigates his surroundings.
The labour of the young, primarily black and brown youth of Camp Greenlake eerily echoes that of the Ethiopian Jewish labourers from the opening scene of Uncut Gems. A constant undervalued commodity in both, is that of the efforts of racialized people. In their own ways, the films showcase how this commodity is used to attempt to advance the status of their more privileged counterparts. Another interesting point of comparison is that just as Stanley clambers for the validation of his black peers at the camp, Howard jockeys for the attention of the black figures he is so often around. These dynamics become complicated, as Stanley was a young boy in a new environment trying to make the most of his situation and Howard was a business affiliate of one of the black figures in question. With these things taken into account, there are still some points of contention worth highlighting. Black cool is coded as something with immeasurable value — in Stanley’s case it ensures he has stability within the camp and in Howard’s case it is what brings him into contact with potential new clients. Fetish objects are made of items which convert Black cool into something tangible. This item in Holes, is Sweet Feet’s sneakers and in Uncut Gems it’s the Furby chains which Howard manufactured for rap music videos. In each film, these objects lend each character social capital, signifying the ways Blackness and its objects become commodified, translating to something of value.
Now let me state the obvious — one of these films is for adults and one of these is for children, but I ask you to disregard this momentarily while I proceed to make the next few points. Returning to the aforementioned treasure hunt comparison, Howard is on a reckless search throughout the entirety of the film whereas Stanley stumbles less consciously into his own wealth. Howard’s hunt is brought to an end by a bullet to the head whereas Stanley’s finishes, due to some grit and hard work — on his part and on that of his father’s long toiled over invention. Holes affirms that you can break generational curses by not letting them define you and forging your own path while Uncut Gems affirms that your path is pre-determined and you are, and always will be bound to your fate. Uncut Gems has a jarringly nihilistic ending but the film in itself is not moralistic. If not an entirely sympathetic character, we get a full fledged portrait of the man Howard is and are given the space to pass our own judgements. On the opposite end, Holes is very decisive in its ideas of right and wrong and people are very clearly heroes and villains. What is pleasant about this, saving it from being reductive, is that the people who disregard the elderly, attempt to kill a black man and maltreat underprivileged youth due to relentless greed are the bad guys, which I, frankly can happily get behind. (Side note: one of the good guys avenges her lover by killing people and robbing them so make of that what you will!)
The moral codes which each film abides by can be gleaned for insights on what space we should make for luck in our lives. Both imply fate is not something to be undermined and it is important to be cognizant of how actions translate in the wider scope of things. Uncut Gems and Holes remind us how often the human and the divine come into contact with each other and put into perspective how cowed we really are in the face of undefinable forces.
