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8
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6 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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Guest
Review by Rod
Barnett |
In
the small Georgia town of Brixton, Annie Wilson (Cate Blanchett)
ekes out a rough living for herself and her three sons as a
fortune teller. Widowed only a year earlier, she still hasn't
moved past her grief; eldest boy Ben is growing more distant
as he tries to cope with his father's death. As we watch her
perform readings for her clients it becomes obvious that Annie
does have some type of extrasensory perception and that she
uses her visions to help people as best she can. Acting much
like a psychologist she tries to convince those that come to
her for guidance or comfort to do the right things, even if
they refuse to listen to her.
The film begins by focusing on Valerie Barksdale (Hilary Swank)
and Buddy Cole (Giovanni Ribisi). Valerie is an abused wife
seeking Annie's help but is unwilling or unable to leave her
husband Donnie (Keanu Reeves). Donnie has decided that Annie
is a Satan-worshipping witch putting ideas in his wife's head.
He threatens Annie's sons and tells her in no uncertain terms
to stay away from his Valerie. Buddy is a local mechanic teetering
on the edge of suicide and tormented by childhood demons he
can't bring himself to put into words. He trusts Annie and feels
she is his only friend. Into this situation steps Wayne Collins
(Greg Kinnear) and his fiancee Jessica King (Katie Holmes).
Wayne is the local grade school principal, concerned about Ben
getting into fights and his failing grades. When Annie rebuffs
his offer to get counseling for Ben, she meets Jessica and has
a vision of her covered in mud, standing in water. A few days
later Jessica goes missing; after a number of days pass her
desperate father asks if Annie might be able to help locate
her. At first she sees nothing, but that night she has a dream
of the poor girl's corpse floating in a tree, wrapped in chains.
Soon Jessica's body turns up in a pond on Donnie Barksdale's
land and he is marched off to jail as the prime suspect. But
Annie is not sure he's the murderer.
Since
I grew up in the American south I have an odd perspective on
films that take place below the Mason-Dixon Line. I can't say
I've ever been really offended by the way in which a movie has
portrayed Southern people but it's a very rare thing to see
a major motion picture actually get not only the accents right,
but the multi-layered culture that make up even the smallest
of towns. Often the movie version of the south is about as realistic
as a Foghorn Leghorn cartoon. I grew up in small southern towns
very much like the one in The Gift —
this movie gets the people, atmosphere and relationships close
to perfect. In this and the well-crafted characters, I found
the movie effortlessly conveys a very familiar sense of place
that made it all the more effective for me. When Annie goes
from her poor side of town to the country club just a few miles
away I could relate to her struggle to keep both worlds in perspective.
Everyone in this small town is aware of the divide between the
haves and the have-nots and one of the horrors of the murder
is that it crosses that divide. The accused man is a ne'er-do-well
redneck with a foul mouth, bad temper and a complete lack of
respect for anyone. His relationship with Jessica King is just
the kind of nasty back room affair that both the wealthy and
poor citizens of a small town would know about, but never speak
of.
The
Gift is proof positive
that even an overly familiar murder mystery plot can be turned
into a powerhouse film by good writing, strong actors and a
great eye behind the camera. As he did with A
Simple Plan, Sam Raimi shows that he's a excellent director
with the ability to rise to material far removed from his early
Evil Dead
days. Here he creates an amazing atmosphere while letting the
story unfold in a clear, leisurely manner that underlines all
the right points. No discussion of this movie would be complete
with remarking on the fantastic cast. Cate Blanchett continues
to astound me every time I see her —
again, here she has transformed herself. She can look very ordinary
but beautiful at the same time; she's totally believable as
a lonely, heartsick woman trying to hold onto herself and her
family in the only way she knows.
The Gift has a big, talented cast
but without Miss Blanchett's brilliant, nuanced performance
at its center it would never work. (In a perfect world she would
have been nominated for an Academy Award.) Taking second place
in the performance category is the amazing Giovanni Ribisi.
His tortured intensity as Buddy is heartrending, with so much
anguish issuing from him that it seems to come off the screen
in waves. Also turning in a strong and scary performance is
Keanu Reeves, nearly unrecognizable as the wife-beating murder
suspect Donnie. With this role and his solid turn in The
Devil's Advocate perhaps Mr. Reeves has found his true
calling —
playing southerners with
very bad relationships with their wives. Greg Kinnear, Hilary
Swank, Michael Jeter and Gary Cole are also very good with each
given moments to shine.
As I alluded
to earlier, the only complaint I have with The
Gift is that the central mystery is fairly familiar.
But I also have to admit that one of the red herrings had me
fooled for a long time. The good news is that the film contains
so much terrific work that even if the goal is in sight quickly,
the journey is a joy.
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Paramount's
DVD of The Gift is very good. It
presents the movie in 1.85:1 widescreen (enhanced for 16X9 TVs),
with a 5.1 soundtrack in English and Dolby Surround tracks in
English and French. The film looks great with only a little grain
in a couple of the darker shots; nothing too distracting.
There are no major extras at all. A 10-minute promo piece includes
very brief interviews with most of the cast but it only whets
the appetite for more. I'd love to have seen a full-length documentary
on the production. A music video and the theatrical trailer are
also thrown in but I was tempted to throw them back. Don't get
me wrong —
I think this is a great DVD
of a very good movie, but I was hoping for more information about
the film instead of slight pieces from the electronic press kit.
This film deserves better but its box office failure works against
the chances of a special edition.
Still, this DVD
is a great presentation of the movie and I highly recommend it.
1/12/03 |
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