Directed by: Joel Edgerton
Starring: Jason Bateman, Rebecca Hall, Joel Edgerton
Even in the photo atop this review, you sense two things emanating from the character Gordo (Edgerton): a. A winsome yearning to belong b. deep-rooted hostility. The trailers for The Gift scream "Fatal Attraction" or any number of films involving a stalker and the stalked. However, The Gift is deeper than you might think and the truth is not as evident as it would seem. By the film's conclusion, what we thought we knew about these people has been altered. Who is the hero? Who is the villain? Are they one in the same? One of the pleasures of watching The Gift is its ability to surprise us and no one even has to pull out a gun or a knife.
Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall play Simon and Robyn, a married couple who move to Los Angeles so Simon can start a new job. They are approached while shopping by a meek, unassuming man named Gordo, who awkwardly reminds Simon that they went to high school together. Simon feigns interest and gives Gordo his number, promising emptily that they will get together sometime. Gordo takes it a step further by dropping by Simon's and Robyn's home while Simon is out and giving Robyn nice gifts like wine. Robyn, who seems nice, but lonely, enjoys the gifts and thinks nothing of Gordo's forwardness.
The three have dinner, which goes awkwardly. Simon writes off Gordo as the nut that everyone made fun of in high school. Robyn thinks of Gordo with affection like one feels with a lost puppy. There is tension in Gordo's scenes with the couple because we suspect he is up to something. He makes Simon feel uneasy, but can't put his finger on why. Gordo seems harmless, but we know there is more than meets the eye.
I won't tread much further into the plot except to set it up. One of the joys of The Gift is how our expectations are challenged. Why does Gordo want to friends with Simon, who clearly is creeped out by him? Is their something lurking underneath? Does Robyn even want to know the history here? And how deep is she willing to dig to find out the truth? It is so compelling how Gordo's presence allows Robyn to question her husband for the first time in their marriage. She trusts him implicitly, but then there are seeds of doubt planted. What is Gordo's endgame? What is Simon's?
Joel Edgerton wrote and directed The Gift and directs with a sure hand. Whenever Robyn is alone in her house, she (and we) feel ill at-ease. The camera stalks her. We want to warn her of a danger that just she doesn't see coming, and not from whom she expects. Edgerton takes a story we think we have wired, shakes it up, and lets things play out to their inevitable conclusion. Gordo tells Simon, "You think you're through with the past, but it isn't through with you." In a lesser movie, Simon's past would be quickly forgiven as he and Robyn unite to thwart their would-be killer Gordo. The Gift is more thoughtful and is interested in presenting questions that the audience will have to figure the answers to.
Bateman is normally seen as a comic actor, but in The Gift we see shades of him we hadn't before. He is assertive, confident, and a take-charge kind of guy, but is he necessarily a good guy? He takes on condescending tones with others that may be mistaken for assertiveness when it may be something else entirely. Rebecca Hall takes a character who in a different movie would be helpless victim or a prize fought over by the two men. In this movie, she is allowed to make choices, ask questions, and determine her own fate. What a tightrope Edgerton walks. His Gordo is someone we think we can make easy decisions about, but then we find out differently about him. In just a few scenes, he goes from being a creepy guy to someone who may have been wronged and we feel sorry for.
When everything plays out, and I know I'm being maddeningly vague about the film's story, we ask ourselves who exactly we think was correct and who got the short end of the stick. This is a great film.
No comments:
Post a Comment