Veritable Tantrum

There are only a handful of movies like The Gift that are smart enough to accomplish two drastically different goals.

One of those goals is keeping you on the edge of your seat WITHOUT using petty tactics. Any director can incorporate slow tracking shots of a woman walking down a dark hallway and turning a corner just so a silhouette figure (which ends up being her husband) pops out. They’re cheap jump scares only made to fill up running time rather than propel the plot or characters in any meaningful way.

Joel Edgerton is no such director.

The Gift marks the actor’s first directorial project, fourth screenwriting project, and god-knows-what-number acting project. Hopefully you remember him as Brendan Conlon in one of the most underrated sports dramas of the last decade, and hopefully you DON’T remember him as “old sport” in that wildly mediocre adaptation of a beloved American novel.

But you’ll never forget Edgerton as Gordo, the socially awkward, chameleon-like classmate of Simon (Jason Bateman). The movie starts with Gordo randomly wandering back into Simon’s life in a department store. We find out Simon did something cruel and mysterious to Gordo back in high school. From there, you – the audience member at the hands of a first-time director who could’ve bitten off more than he could chew, as often happens with most actors-turned-filmmakers – experience an excruciatingly tense 100 minutes of twisty character development that speaks volumes about how mistakes from our past stay with us rather than return to haunt us.

Which brings me to the second goal this movie accomplishes…

The reason why most thrillers are generic dumpster fires is because they don’t even try to provide relatable characters. If you’re a teenage viewer, you still won’t relate to stupid 17-year-olds trying to screw their way through a cannibalistic nightmare only to have their heads cut off and stuffed onto a spike. If you’re a hiking enthusiast, I doubt you’ll commiserate with three whiny art students who get lost in the woods while trying to make a documentary about a witch that enjoys stick figures.

But everyone can relate to the The Gift‘s three leads because everyone has bullied or been bullied at one point in their life. You may have shampooed kids with swirlies or made a condescending comment behind someone’s back, both of which can contribute to a belated sense of wrongdoing in adulthood.

It doesn’t matter. Whether the torture was big or small, we always remember it. We never forget those bad memories because they have a pervasive influence on how we see ourselves.

The most memorable line comes from Gordo, who says to Simon, “You might be done with the past, but the past isn’t done with you.” That’s what The Gift is all about: it illustrates how we carry cruel memories with us everywhere we go. The only thing we can do every day is hope that the worst ones don’t ruin us.