Movie Reviews: "The Gift" Thrills While Inadvertently Reminding Us Of The Importance Of Belief

A few years back, MyTeeVee (Colaborator’s sister company) starting featuring notable short films on its social media pages.  Spider, directed by Nash Edgerton and produced by Blue-Tongue Films, the company he shares with brother Joel Edgerton, was the first film MyTeeVee ever featured.  At the time, it seemed like we had discovered something new and exciting.  Of course, the reality is that Spider was actually the tenth film (nine of those shorts) Blue-Tongue had produced, so we hadn’t “discovered” anything, really; we were just extremely late to the party and didn’t know it.

So, why do I bring this up at the beginning of a review of The Gift, the new thriller directed by Joel Edgerton starring Jason Bateman, Rebecca Hall and Edgerton himself (Joel, that is) about a man whose past comes back to haunt him?  Because, after watching this film, I was immediately struck by two things: 1) Blue-Tongue has produced a total of 29 films (that it has received IMDB credits for anyway) and just now is Joel Edgerton getting his feature film directorial debut (i.e., I was reminded just how long it can take to reach certain milestones in the entertainment industry) and 2) it’s pretty astounding that The Gift could be anyone’s feature debut, not to mention someone who is also producing and playing one of the lead roles (and playing it incredibly well, but more on that below).  

Blue-Tongue’s first film (again, according to IMDB, at least) was produced nearly 20 years ago.  They made nine shorts before they got a feature made, produced an additional three shorts (one being the aforementioned Spider) before they got their next feature made, and since then have produced six more shorts, all while Nash was working as a stuntman on huge films like The Thin Red Line, all three films in The Matrix trilogy, Mission: Impossible II, Red Planet, Moulin Rouge! and the last two installments of the Star Wars franchise, just to name a few, and Joel was racking up an equally impressive resume as an actor (Zero Dark Thirty, The Odd Life of Timothy Green, The Thing, The Great Gatsby and the same two Star Wars films his brother worked on are just a sampling).  It is an incredible story of drive and determination and a reminder to every person trying to live a creative life that “success” (however you define it) takes a very long time to achieve for most of us.  Paul Haggis, in a soon to be released episode of Gatekeepers (Colaborator’s interview series focusing on the experiences and processes of entertainment industry veterans), said that you have to want it more than the next guy.  While I’m not entirely certain I agree 100% (because I like to believe that success is a product of your own actions and has relatively little to do with the actions of others), I do feel that you certainly need to want it so much that you will never give up, no matter what.  Joel and Nash Edgerton are, it would seem, a prime example of that.  Then again, maybe they just really enjoy making short films on shoestring budgets.  It’s probably at least a factor, actually. 

Beyond all that, and more directly to the point, The Gift approaches a masterwork.  I don't think it gets there, but it's not too far off, and you can very clearly see that Edgerton has all the makings of an exceptional filmmaker.  As a feature directorial debut, it ranks right up there with the likes of the Coen brothers' Blood Simple.  The film is not without flaws (the most glaring that it takes far too long to get started), but its ability to thrill us in unexpected ways – ways that don’t simply replicate the usual thriller tropes and fulfill all the normal genre expectations – is at the very least noteworthy.  What makes The Gift exceptional is as much where it doesn’t go as where it does.  It avoids painting its characters and situations as black and white and might be the most complex thriller we’ve seen come out of Hollywood since David Fincher’s Seven.  Coincidentally, the first comparison that came to mind was actually a much more recent Fincher film, Gone Girl, which is also a fine film, but doesn’t paint its characters with nearly the same complexity as either Bateman’s Simon (some of Bateman’s best work) or Edgerton’s Gordo (who doesn’t turn into a typical monster or psycho, but instead gets more human as the story progresses) and relies much more heavily on more standard thriller ingredients, like blood and shocking violence, to keep its story engaging – to no fault of Fincher’s of course; he was working with source material, while Edgerton wrote his own script.  I can’t remember the last time I got to the end of a film, was truly unsure which character I empathized with the most and still thought it was a thoroughly satisfying story.  Maybe never.   That’s how rare of a feat it is for a film to be so simultaneously ambiguous and emotionally satisfying (ambiguity is often intellectually satisfying because it causes one to ponder meaning, but it’s almost never emotionally satisfying at the end of a story; in this case, the story genuinely felt as though it couldn’t have ended any other way).  What’s more, Edgerton is able to organically weave in an interesting take on the effects of bullying, not the sort thing you generally expect from any genre film.  I think I may have even given up believing such things were possible.  

If you don’t read anything else about The Gift before watching it (and I strongly suggest you don’t), you’re in for even more surprises than I experienced.  Whether you’re in it for the thrills of a thriller or the nuances of really good filmmaking, you won’t be disappointed.  And if you’re a struggling creative person, both the film and the story of the Edgerton brothers provide an important reminder – nothing is impossible until you believe that it is, and certain things in life take a long time to achieve, so stay committed and don’t give up hope when it doesn’t happen over night. 

Check out our other review this week: Whose fault is the disastrous Fantastic Four?