Just finished watching "Rough Diamond", and there is still a buzzing noise in my head. The film was released not long ago in the United States and starred Adam Sandler. His previous works tended to be comedy, and movies such as "50 First Loves" and "Remote for Life" are all my favorites. In Uncut Diamonds, though, Adam Sandler's role isn't a comedy, but a different style. Next, let's talk about "Rough Diamond".
(one)
Uncut Diamonds is two hours long, and most of the viewing time is not enjoyable. The shots are a little chaotic, the characters often speak their own way, and you'll hear several voices at the same time, giving it a noisy feeling. Even the director added white noise to increase the noise level. However, when I patiently watched the movie, "Uncut Diamond" gave a satisfying ending, which was somewhat of a surprise.
This is the story of Uncut Diamonds. In the midst of a financial crisis, a jeweler bought a unique rough diamond, but an NBA star borrowed it. Originally, the star should be returned to the original diamond the next day, but various accidents occurred, so the main plot of the movie is that the protagonist recovers the original diamond and brings it to the auction on time.
In the process of recovering the rough diamonds, the protagonist is under increasing pressure from multiple debt collectors, and his family is in crisis due to an affair. However, the rough diamonds did not sell at high prices as expected, and the debt collectors even threatened the protagonist's life.
As a last resort, the protagonist decided to make a big gamble, and he succeeded, doubling the 150,000 to more than one million. Just when he thought his life had reached a low point, the debt collector sent him to hell with a bullet impatiently, and the dead body still had an ecstatic smile on his face. At this moment, people feel a deep irony.
This ending has the same effect as "Othello" - the protagonist finally gets what he always wanted, but it's too late for him to have it. "Othello" finally got a wife who really loved him and wouldn't betray him for another man, but by the time he found out it was too late, he had just killed her. And in Rough Diamond, all the protagonist wants is his dream big turnaround, a huge windfall is about to arrive, but he can't have it because he's killed when he hears the good news. This ironic ending is a good ending to the movie, and it also makes people let go of their previous dissatisfaction with the viewing experience.
(two)
Although the ending of "Uncut Diamonds" is very good, it is still not perfect in terms of plot. This imperfection is mainly reflected in "knowing it but not knowing why", and there are many suspense foreshadowings that have not been revealed. Audiences can guess the relationship between most of the characters in Uncut Diamonds, but they don't know why their relationship is the way it is. At the same time, "Rough Diamond" is also questionable in the choice of the turning range of the whole film.
First, the protagonist's life doesn't change much from the beginning to the end. From the beginning of the story, the protagonist's life is chaotic and rushed. After customers enter the store, there is a noisy discussion, and the phone calls one after another. At the same time, at the beginning of the story, the protagonist has gotten into a lot of trouble, has been in debt, has a bad reputation, and is a selfish, arrogant, and liar guy.
By the end, the protagonist's life is still chaotic and hurried. Even if he wins the ball game, the audience knows that his life must be the same as before, and his character has not changed in any way, and there is nothing to look forward to. If the protagonist hadn't died, the story of "Rough Diamond" would only have a very bad beginning and a very bad end, and the value level would not have changed much. When the protagonist dies ironically, the value of the story changes as "from bad to bad".
If "Uncut Diamond" started from a slightly better situation - when he was not bankrupt, when his reputation was still good, when the family was still full - and then gradually slipped into a worse situation, something like this The value change will be greater, and the ending will be stronger.
Secondly, "Rough Diamond" does not tell the subplots in detail, and the characterization is also insufficient. The relationship between the protagonist and the creditor, wife, lover, and partner is almost fragmented. The audience can guess the relationship between each other from the lines, but most of these characters and relationships have not been further explained. "Why did they have such a relationship?", "What happened between them?" and other questions, "Rough Diamond" did not answer. At the same time, the character-derived subplots are also fragmented, bursting into the protagonist's life and leaving in a hurry. The result is confusing.
The problem with the fragmentation of the subplot is that the characterization is also incomplete. In the whole movie, the only three-dimensional character is the protagonist, and the supporting characters tend to be flat. The portrayal of supporting characters is important because they are the key to building the character dimension of the protagonist. The relationship between different supporting roles and the protagonist reflects the different character dimensions of the protagonist, so as to build a more three-dimensional, complex and in-depth character image.
However, most of the supporting characters in "Uncut Gems" display a sense of madness, impatience, anger, self-talk, selfishness, and greed. The interaction between these supporting characters and the protagonist does reflect these characteristics of the protagonist very well, but it lacks a more diverse dimension. For example, "Rough Diamond" wants to portray the protagonist's love for the family, but in fact it is not portrayed well at all, because there is a lack of corresponding supporting characters to reflect this character dimension. According to New World: Spiritual Awakening, both the protagonist and the supporting characters are the actions of the ego, behind which are unconscious thoughts and chattering voices in the brain. In other words, looking at the interaction between the supporting cast and the protagonist, in fact, they only show one kind of character dimension, they are just the same kind of people from different positions.
(three)
Given all the fragmented subplots and flat characters, how does Uncut Diamonds advance the story? It mainly depends on a few points. On the one hand, the movie "Rough Diamond" is full of contradictions and conflicts. Although the lines and dialogues are very confusing, the dramatic tension can be clearly felt. When the protagonist wants something, life rejects him and says "no, you don't want to". When the protagonist wants rough diamonds, he can't get them, so he wants to get them even more; when the protagonist wants to pawn jewelry for cash, the pawnbroker refuses him, so the protagonist persuades and compromises in every possible way. And so on, through this antagonistic force, the protagonist is forced to take further actions, thereby advancing the plot.
On the other hand, "Rough Diamond" also uses ironic twists many times, which is very clever. One of the neat examples is that the protagonist gambles all his cash and wins a lot of money. To this end, the protagonist also celebrated. However, as soon as the screen turned, the protagonist learned that the money he was gambling on was not bet at all, and was taken away by the debt collector. The protagonist is just fetching water from a bamboo basket.
Another ingenious design is that the rough diamond's auction estimate was much lower than expected. Before that, the protagonist recovered the rough diamonds, and it seemed that everything was moving in a better direction, and it was time to turn around. As a result, the auction estimate was too low, making the protagonist very disappointed and angry. Such a turning point can arouse the curiosity of the audience. This way or the other way will not work. What else can the protagonist do? How to get out of this predicament? So, the story goes on like this.
"Uncut Diamonds" cleverly advances the story amid the chaos. Although the viewing experience is not very good, it does not make people feel running accounts or empty. It is worth mentioning that this confusion is not only manifested in scene cohesion and noisy lines, but also in shot language, long shots, noisy sets, and so on.
These designs try to create the effect that the life of the protagonist is full of chaos and uncertainty. To a certain extent, "Uncut Diamonds" did achieve this effect, but at the expense of the audience's viewing experience, resulting in a buzzing noise after the viewing. In order to reflect the chaos of life and the impact of this chaos on the protagonist, it is not necessary to use this style of scenes and shots.
A little bit of unfolding at the story level can also achieve this effect. For example, in "Mrs. Kramers", the protagonist's life is chaotic due to the departure of his wife. The film shows this effect in an orderly manner. And "Rough Diamond" is more or less anxious and lacks the calmness of storytelling, resulting in the film's lack of story dynamics one after another in the chaos and noise. Just imagine the situation getting better, then getting worse, then getting better, and so on and so forth is a very dynamic story. But "Rough Diamond" can pursue a noisy superficial chaos, and as a result, the audience receives chaos, and it is difficult to distinguish whether the situation is turning for the better or worse.
All in all, "Uncut Diamond" is indeed a movie with a bad viewing experience. At the same time, the lack of subplots and flat characters are also evident. But the ironic twist and ironic ending that "Uncut Diamonds" takes in advancing the story is a bright spot. Looking at it this way, the chaotic camera scenes and noisy dialogue can't be bad. These are just the characteristics of "Rough Diamond", and whether you like it or not is another matter.
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