The Gift (2015) Starring: Jason Bateman, Rebecca Hall, Joel Edgerton, Allison TolmanRelease Date: August 7, 2015Rating: 4.3/5 Summary: A happily married couple reunites with a man who claims to have gone to high school with the husband and all hell breaks loose once the man starts getting creepy. My Thoughts: So I've seen The Gift twice now and I've only now formed a coherent thought on it now and although it ranks high in my head because the main characters moved from Chicago to where they are now. I really loved that, but it wasn't the greatest. There were some things about it that weren't all right. One thing being that it was beautifully shot. Like seriously, the camera angles in this movie were great!
The Gift starts us off with a completely normal premise where we have an overly friendly man and a couple. I had expectations for this film to be a little bit better than a Lifetime movie as its in theaters, but it surprised me a lot. Instead of a villain we hate and characters we root for, the roles are reversed. We have a very unlikable lead who you despise and a villain we want to get away in the end. Why? You'll just have to see the movie for that. The characters and their psychology is what worked for the movie. The different archetypes of characters were different from your typical thriller. Again we have the lead male who you end up hating, a villain with actual, defendable reasons for his actions and the wife. The wife who's at the beck and call of her husband and the only line thing want her to say is: I want a divorce. As I said, the lead male, her husband, is a huge dick.She has a mystery surrounding her that makes for a good character. Too bad we never find out what it is.
What left me disappointed was the amount of questions it left me with. The obvious question on the ending and what happened is not what I have issues with, it's the minor details that were left unexplained are what left me is what I have major issues with? What exactly happened in high school to Gordo? It's explained but not in immense details. What happened in Chicago to Robin? Why is she a huge pill popper? What happened to Danny? There are more questions you're left with than answers and that is what frustrates me. That's sloppy writing. It's as if they're so focused with that shocking ending and wanting you to leave the theater thinking about that, they leave you with unanswered questions on little things throughout the movie. And trust me, they're noticeable. You're just like: What?! And finally, the overly fake belly. No one likes an overly fake pregnant belly. It's annoying and everyone knows that although it's a movie, it's fake. It's like they stuffed a ball under her shirt and that's it.
So in all, The Gift was good. It's different from anything I've seen recently as it has this weird, psychology to it that leaves you thinking about a lot. Bullying and how exactly it effects people was a huge theme in this movie and it having adults as the cast was cool, a different take on the story. P.S: another huge line of the movie is: "I don't think I've asked you about [insert question here]? Tell me about it."
