We’ve all been in the situation before. Someone we knew years ago bumps into us unexpectedly, and we feel compelled to be friendly and pretend to want to catch up. What we really want, though, is an easy escape without looking like a jerk. But what if we can’t escape? And that acquaintance wants a lot more from us than just a cup of coffee and walk down memory lane. The Gift is that scenario. In the creepiest way imaginable.
Simon (Jason Bateman) and Robyn (Rebecca Hall) have recently moved to Los Angeles to begin a new job and to start a family. While shopping for home decorations, they run into Gordo (Joel Edgerton), one of Simon’s classmates from high school. They promise to call and catch up, but Gordo begins sending gifts to the house and stopping by unannounced. Robyn is sympathetic toward Gordo, but Simon knows their new friend has sinister intentions. When Robyn discovers clues about Simon’s behavior from years before, she realizes they can’t ignore Gordo or his repeated gifts. Their marriage is tested as Robyn’s paranoia and Simon’s patience are pushed to the breaking point, and they must unveil secrets from the past to discover who Gordo and Simon really are.
This is a film, like most thrillers, in which the twists are the fundamental qualities of the story, so I will attempt to avoid spoilers here. The Gift is a potent combination of “monster in the house” plot, investigative procedural, and marital drama. And it is this effort to go beyond traditional scary movie patterns that makes it work. We are never told the whole story behind Simon and Gordo’s relationship, so our search for meaning mirrors the confused and panicked Robyn. Hall is effective as the wife trying to move on from a tragic pregnancy in her past and rely on her husband for moral support, and Edgerton is excellent as the eerie intruder. He plays the role as both pitiable and threatening, and it is his subtle ominousness that avoids the cartoonish villainy of so many other films in this genre. But the real stand-out here is Bateman, who sheds his charming, dry-witted, comic persona we have come to love and stretches himself psychologically into some very dark terrain. He has the knack of being able to say anything with a wink, but he also employs a physicality here we’ve never seen before. We’ve caught glimpses of his dramatic chops in films like Disconnected, but I hope to see Bateman continue to take on different and challenging parts like these.
The Gift marks the directorial debut of Edgerton, and he does a fabulous job of following some standard terror tropes, while adding his own subtle touches. It is what he withholds from the audience that ends up working just as well as the jump scares. I anticipate many more projects with Edgerton behind the lens.
The main problem with the film, and what keeps it from being great, is its primary message. We clearly understand the theme—and it’s a good one—that we can never truly escape our past. However, the film also seems to imply that if someone is wronged, the inevitable response is to wrong them back a thousand times worse in the future. The ending is a whopper, and will likely elicit mixed feelings about who is really to blame for the chaotic conclusion. This is a film about karma, but the lesson doesn’t feel like it lands quite as effectively as it could. After all, while he certainly didn’t in his younger years, Gordo definitely deserves whatever may come to him now.
This film is far from perfect, but it’s one I couldn’t take my eyes away from, and it deserves credit for that. Aside from the muddled messaging, The Gift is entertaining, suspenseful, and well made in all the right ways. You can’t help but think back over your own past and wonder who could come out of the woodwork and greet you during your next shopping outing. And that is the creepiest effect of all.
Grade: B
Simon (Jason Bateman) and Robyn (Rebecca Hall) have recently moved to Los Angeles to begin a new job and to start a family. While shopping for home decorations, they run into Gordo (Joel Edgerton), one of Simon’s classmates from high school. They promise to call and catch up, but Gordo begins sending gifts to the house and stopping by unannounced. Robyn is sympathetic toward Gordo, but Simon knows their new friend has sinister intentions. When Robyn discovers clues about Simon’s behavior from years before, she realizes they can’t ignore Gordo or his repeated gifts. Their marriage is tested as Robyn’s paranoia and Simon’s patience are pushed to the breaking point, and they must unveil secrets from the past to discover who Gordo and Simon really are.
This is a film, like most thrillers, in which the twists are the fundamental qualities of the story, so I will attempt to avoid spoilers here. The Gift is a potent combination of “monster in the house” plot, investigative procedural, and marital drama. And it is this effort to go beyond traditional scary movie patterns that makes it work. We are never told the whole story behind Simon and Gordo’s relationship, so our search for meaning mirrors the confused and panicked Robyn. Hall is effective as the wife trying to move on from a tragic pregnancy in her past and rely on her husband for moral support, and Edgerton is excellent as the eerie intruder. He plays the role as both pitiable and threatening, and it is his subtle ominousness that avoids the cartoonish villainy of so many other films in this genre. But the real stand-out here is Bateman, who sheds his charming, dry-witted, comic persona we have come to love and stretches himself psychologically into some very dark terrain. He has the knack of being able to say anything with a wink, but he also employs a physicality here we’ve never seen before. We’ve caught glimpses of his dramatic chops in films like Disconnected, but I hope to see Bateman continue to take on different and challenging parts like these.
The Gift marks the directorial debut of Edgerton, and he does a fabulous job of following some standard terror tropes, while adding his own subtle touches. It is what he withholds from the audience that ends up working just as well as the jump scares. I anticipate many more projects with Edgerton behind the lens.
The main problem with the film, and what keeps it from being great, is its primary message. We clearly understand the theme—and it’s a good one—that we can never truly escape our past. However, the film also seems to imply that if someone is wronged, the inevitable response is to wrong them back a thousand times worse in the future. The ending is a whopper, and will likely elicit mixed feelings about who is really to blame for the chaotic conclusion. This is a film about karma, but the lesson doesn’t feel like it lands quite as effectively as it could. After all, while he certainly didn’t in his younger years, Gordo definitely deserves whatever may come to him now.
This film is far from perfect, but it’s one I couldn’t take my eyes away from, and it deserves credit for that. Aside from the muddled messaging, The Gift is entertaining, suspenseful, and well made in all the right ways. You can’t help but think back over your own past and wonder who could come out of the woodwork and greet you during your next shopping outing. And that is the creepiest effect of all.
Grade: B