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'The Gift' A thriller that lingers in the mind
The thriller genre saw its peak in the early 1990s with films such as The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Cape Fear and Single White Female
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The thriller genre saw its peak in the early 1990s with films such as The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Cape Fear and Single White Female. Reliably creepy and filled with dread, The Gift is a throwback to that era.
Written and directed by Australian actor Joel Edgerton (his first time behind the lens), the film is satisfyingly unnerving in the way it unfolds. It starts off like a regular thriller before unveiling a deeper psychological drama within its dread.
As one of the film's main characters, Edgerton commands the screen with a creepy sort of kindness that illuminates both pitiable sadness but also danger.
His Gordon 'Gordo' Moseley first enters the screen alarmingly out-of-focus, just behind Jason Bateman's Simon Callum, when the two old friends run into each other at a furniture store in Los Angeles.
Callum doesn't immediately recognize him at first, but nonetheless politely invites Gordo over for a casual get-together with his wife Robyn (played by an outstanding Rebecca Hall) at their new house in the LA hills.
Soon enough, however, Gordo's penchant for dropping off gifts on their porch becomes an odd routine and his seeming obsession with the Callums unravels something more sinister and tragic than mere pathetic obsession.
Edgerton's masterful direction in that initial meeting ' the awkwardness, the clear social imbalance between Gordo with Simon and Robyn ' sets the tone for the movie.
There are very few clichéd, loud-sound scares here. Instead, Edgerton directs his Gordo as something of a sad outsider whose appearances seem like clumsy apparitions.
The modernist house occupied by Simon and Robyn ' glass windows everywhere ' is amenable to a horror film, but Edgerton never uses trite tricks to introduce Gordo.
The appearance of Gordo is always sudden and clumsy, yet frighteningly so. Gordo comes across as a misunderstood geek and the film slowly reveals why he came to be that way. The film then shifts its focus toward Simon.
This shift is also the film's strongest emotional point. Instead of typical stalker dread, the film unleashes a tragic atmosphere, showcasing the dynamics between 'stronger' and 'weaker' personalities.
Although the film unfortunately closes its curtains with a somewhat silly twist of events that doesn't live up to the weightiness of its previous acts, The Gift still lingers in the mind.
As Simon, Bateman's straight-guy act evolves into something more vicious. His confident wit ' a strong point in his many comedic roles ' is shed of any comic irony here, and instead feels mesmerizingly uncomfortable.
The dynamics that Simon shares, not only with Gordo, but with his empathetic wife, is one of the film's strongest suits. Hall plays Robyn with a pure fragility that reveals itself as the story's center.
The Gift would have been perfect if it opted to observe the broken dynamics between its three leads. Nonetheless, apart from the dull conclusion, the film is a rarity these days ' a compact thriller with great acting, great direction and pacing and a kind of humanity that runs throughout.
' Photos courtesy by STX Entertainment
