In which the problem of the miscast director once again comes into play. The director in this case was Sam Raimi, tasked with helming a modest southern-fried thriller scripted by Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson. Carl Franklin, who directed the Thornton-Epperson scripted ONE FALSE MOVE (1991), might have been an ideal choice for director of THE GIFT (2000), as might Thornton himself, but not Raimi, who began his career as an indie legend but by the turn of the millennium was fully immersed in the Hollywood scene (his previous directorial effort, let’s not forget, was the glossy 1999 Kevin Costner vehicle FOR LOVE OF THE GAME). That was evidenced by the fact that he overloaded the cast with Hollywood stars, presumably because his leading lady Cate Blanchett was still a relative unknown in 2000.
Blanchett plays Annie Wilson, a character based on Thornton’s mother. She’s a young widow living in a depressed Georgia town who’s raising three boys and is “gifted” with psychic powers. The precise nature of these powers is never explained, with the object having been, according to Raimi, to present them “as normal as the skill that a doctor has.” Annie uses her gifts to make money in the form of donations by neighbors, to whom she acts as a combination fortune teller and psychiatrist.
Problems intrude in the form of Dannie Barksdale (Keanu Reeves), an abusive scumbag whose wife Valerie (Hilary Swank) is one of Annie’s clients. Annie advises Valerie to leave Donnie, which results in a campaign of violent harassment. When Jessica King (Katie Holmes), the promiscuous fiancée of the mild-mannered school principal Wayne Collins (Greg Kinnear), disappears, it would seem Donnie is the culprit. A vision of a dripping Jessica inspires Annie to inform police that the woman was drowned, and a pond on Donnie’s property is dredged—which does indeed turn up Jessica’s waterlogged corpse.
Donnie is arrested for murder, but Annie has visions that inspire second thoughts about his culpability. There are in fact several potential killers in the town, including Buddy Cole (Giovanni Ribisi), a disturbed mechanic who’s befriended Annie, and David Duncan (Gary Cole), the prosecutor who jailed Donnie, and who was spotted by Annie canoodling with Jessica on the day of her disappearance. The truth is made evident in a final showdown at the site of Jessica’s drowning, in which a shocking reveal is made, and a supernatural intervention occurs.
DON’T LOOK NOW this film isn’t, although Raimi clearly gave it his all. His approach is textured and detail-oriented, depicting a white trash southern milieu in a manner that for once doesn’t feel aloof or patronizing. The film’s qualities are boosted immeasurably by Cate Blanchett, who’s excellent in the lead role, while Keanu Reeves nearly matches her (yes, really) as the vile abuser Donny, which may well be his finest—and certainly his most menacing—film performance.
Some of Raimi’s directorial signatures are evident (note that Annie drives a 1973 Delta 88 Oldsmobile, a.k.a. “The Classic,” which turns up in every Sam Raimi film), although for the most part his quirks are kept under control (there’s no show-offy camerawork or over-the-top special effects, and Bruce Campbell does NOT appear), with the emphasis on slow-building suspense and southern gothic atmosphere. It never feels particularly authentic, alas, with the fake accents and stagey-looking locations compromising the realism.
The film’s real problems are with the screenplay, which despite its solid characterizations and well-constructed narrative gets bogged down in contrivances. The details of Annie’s powers are sketchy and inconsistent, with her visions taking the form of dreams and hallucinations whose precise nature seems to depend primarily on the requirements of the story. An example would be the fact that she’s able to foresee the killing of Jessica but not who did it, something it takes her until the end of the film to visualize—the very point at which, conveniently enough, the script is ready to make that reveal.
Plus, figuring out whodunnit is no big trick here, as it was clear (to me at least) early on who it was. Consider: there’s only one character in THE GIFT’s gallery of grotesques who’s truly close to the victim, meaning that character is the only one with a plausible motive for killing her. It’s just too bad the supposedly psychic protagonist can’t figure that out.
Vital Statistics
THE GIFT
Lakeshore Entertainment/Paramount Classics
Director: Sam Raimi
Producers: James Jacks, Tom Rosenberg, Gary Luccesi
Screenplay: Billy Bob Thornton, Tom Epperson
Cinematography: Jamie Anderson
Editing: Bob Murawski
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Giovanni Ribisi, Keanu Reeves, Katie Holmes, Greg Kinnear, Hilary Swank, Michael Jeter, Kim Dickens, Gary Cole, Rosemary Harris, J.K. Simmons, Chelcie Ross, John Beasley, Lynnsee Provence, Hunter McGilvray, Nathan Lewis, Benjamin Peacock, Clay James