Among the thousand and one words that make up New York’s vernacular slang, there is one that, when pronounced, makes the tongue click and the mouth round like a big bubble of chewing gum. “Schmuck.” A name inherited from the Yiddish language of the old Jewish immigrants of the Lower East Side, which is used to point the finger at those who have gone too far.
A schmuck is a klutz. Howard Ratner is a schmuck. The title character in the Safdie brothers' latest film, the highly acclaimed Uncut Gems, is a case in point, yes. Played with succulent brilliance by actor Adam Sandler, Howard Ratner is a cartoonishly glib diamond dealer dripping with misplaced pride who haunts the streets of Manhattan carrying a farandole of pots and pans behind him.
Everything is so grotesque, so garish, that it ends up infusing a certain coolness into the screen.
Above all, here is a guy with a hell of a look, somewhere between a cheap mobster and a professional bowler. Howard Ratner likes clothes that cost a lot of money and that sparkle under all the neon lights and all the skies. Flashy at all costs. The top: Howard Ratner likes striped polo shirts whose sleeves mold to the outline of his biceps, silk shirts whose pink reminds one of salmon and double-breasted suits like grandpa. The bottom: generally held up by a belt with a big gold buckle at navel height, his pants have visible pleats as if they had always just come out of the dry cleaners, and end up in a pile of bad creases on Italian loafers that turn up funny and are also decorated with a buckle that throws.
When the tension is rising a notch or two, Howard Ratner also likes to wear a Sunday tracksuit made of synthetic material and shoes with thick soles. He's tough, like that. And all this is invariably accompanied by the same series of accessories that finish making the guy the schmuckiest of all schmucks: a chain bracelet that weighs a ton, a watch from a Geneva brand worth a thousand carats with an astonishing red dial as well as a pair of sunglasses with smoked lenses. Obviously. "These clothes say Howard Ratner's business side, but also a dark side, a raw side," explains the director Benny Safdie in the American version of GQ magazine (…) That said: "If you come looking for me, you're going to see all the colors." "If you think of a guy who's not really fashion-conscious and likes to wear this to a club, he's the one," costume designer Miyako Bellizi told The Cut.
Schmuck but stylish.
To create this look, which is more or less that of all the birds of ill omen in the Diamond District, the production team walked the length and breadth of the sticky, dark streets of this part of New York nestled beneath the famous echo of Times Square. They spent hours observing these faces hanging around on the landings of jewelry stores waiting for a good deal, with a dried cigarette in their mouths and a lukewarm coffee in their hands. "On 47th Street, they stayed twenty years ago, they're stuck in time," says Josh Safdie.
While most of the pieces in Howard Ratner's wardrobe come from well-known brands, some of them were the subject of meticulous research. The production's costume designers found an old blazer on Ebay and a suit jacket on the aptly named website doublebreastedsuits.com. Price of the thing: $19.99. For his part, actor Adam Sandler dressed like a schmuck, they say. The only thing he wouldn't concede was the jeans being too tight. There's no way he'd feel too tight around the thighs on camera.
Also, to tell the truth, by dint of being dressed anyhow scene after scene, Howard Ratner's character becomes elegant. Everything is so grotesque, so garish that it ends up infusing a certain coolness on screen. He has something there, a sense of chic or almost. Schmuck but stylish.
No wonder then that at the time of fancy dress parties, we don't hesitate to dress like him. No wonder either that major fashion sections recommend some of his pieces.
At Hast, we won't go that far. A little seriousness, all the same.