The Gift

"You may be done with the past, but the past is not done with you."

Joel Edgerton is an actor who kind of came out of nowhere for me. Suddenly, he was popping up all over the place, turning in strong performances in less than stellar films such as The Thing or The Odd Life of Timothy Green. I would always come away from those films thinking he was one of the best things in them. His profile has only grown with notable turns in Zero Dark Thirty, The Great Gatsby, and the unfortunately misguided Exodus: Gods and Kings. When I heard about his latest film The Gift, which he also wrote and directed, I knew I had to see it.

Simon (played by Jason Bateman) and Robyn (played by Rebecca Hall) have just moved to Los Angeles after Simon has gotten a big new job. One day while out shopping for things for their new house, they run into one of Simon's old classmates from high school, Gordon "Gordo" Mosely (played by Joel Edgerton), who Simon initially doesn't even recognize. After some brief small talk, Simon get's Gordon's phone number and promises to call him to set up a time to get together, but never follows through. They then come home one day to find a bottle of wine and card of their front step from Gordon congratulating them on their new home. Robyn encourages Simon to reach out to Gordon and thank him for the wine. Meanwhile, Simon is wondering why Gordon knew where they lived and a little creeped out by it. Gordon then turns up a third time to find Robyn at home alone. Robyn invites Gordon in to show him the house. She then invites Gordon to stay for dinner so Simon can thank him for the gift and the two can catch up. The three of them have dinner together, but yet there is something a bit off about Gordon, who continuously is vague or dodges questions about his own life. At the end of the night after Gordon leaves, Simon and his wife talk and Simon makes it clear he has no interest in seeing Gordon again. They decide to just quietly step away but Gordon keeps turning up and his motivations become more and more cryptic.

Things come to a head when Gordon invites Simon and Robyn over to his house for dinner. Having had enough, Simon makes it crystal clear he has no interest in being friends with him and wants him to leave them alone. Gordon sends them one last note stating he was sorry they didn't want to be friends and he had been willing to let bygones be bygones. This piques Robyn's curiosity wondering what Gordon could have meant by that. Simon says he doesn't know and asks Robyn to drop it. But she can't let it go and starts looking into both Gordon and Simon, with some assistance from her neighbor Lucy (played by Alison Tolman). The more she digs, it becomes clear that Gordon may have more malicious intentions towards Simon because of something that happened when they were kids. 

I'm a big fan of the psychological thriller genre and this one fits in very nicely among that genre, but Joel Edgerton carefully tweaks the plot of the film so that every time you think you know where it's going it throws you a curve ball. I'm really skating a fine line with my summarizing and reviewing because I just don't want to give too much away, but just enough for you to decide if this is a good movie for you (if you like thrillers, it is).  

In addition to writing and directing, Edgerton also gives a good performance as Gordon. He manages to make what could have been just another movie psycho many more layers and depth of character that winds up being at times even a sympathetic character. Both Bateman and Hall gave strong performances as well, especially Bateman who is given a much more serious role to play for once after playing mostly comedic roles. It's nice to see Bateman get a chance to sink his teeth into a meatier role and as a result gives one of his best performances. All three actors bring the many layers of their characters wonderfully to life. You sense that all three characters have their own secrets and hidden pains and covey that to the audience wonderfully, often just through facial expressions.   

Overall, The Gift is a carefully plotted thriller with an intriguing premise that is wonderfully executed by a great cast and direction from Joel Edgerton. If this is what he is able to do with his first feature film, I eagerly anticipate his next one.