Director Sam Raimi’s work has always been a rather mixed bag, ranging from outstanding genre films like Evil Dead to more mainstream films like A Simple Plan. But even in his mediocre attempts at filmmaking, like Darkman or The Quick and the Dead, Raimi’s mastery at truly utilizing the canvas of the movie screen has carried over. His films tend to capture strong moods through subtle techniques, and The Gift, Raimi’s most recent filmic escapade, is no exception.
Raimi establishes a dark ambiance from the very beginning of the film by using its rural atmosphere to produce a tone of ominous foreboding. Raimi’s depiction of the woods and swamps of this Southern setting as a place full of the unknown creates feelings of uneasiness in its audience. While not as bleak as the snowy forests of A Simple Plan, the landscapes of The Gift generate the same feelings of agitation, turning the familiar into something strange and sinister.
(In an early scene in the film, for example, the main character receives a visit from her grandmother while she is hanging laundry out to dry. Raimi films the grandmother through the gauzy haze of one of the sheets hanging on the line, giving her a ghostly quality fitting for a woman who’s been dead for several years. The woods from which the old woman emerges transform through tricks of the camera into gnarled and twisted distortions of what they had been, and the sky quickly fills with dark clouds. Then, just as quickly as the world turned away, things return to normal, leaving the protagonist--and the audience--questioning the meaning of these warnings.)
Raimi’s strong visual techniques are ably backed by a script from Billy Bob Thornton, whose track record has been as uneven in the past as Raimi’s. Yet with this script it is easy to see why Thornton has been awarded an Oscar for his writing. A plot summary would quickly reveal that the story contains all the typical elements of a movie thriller: a small-town fortuneteller named Annie (played by Cate Blanchett) is revealed to have a “gift” all too real when she begins having nightmares about the fate of a girl who has recently disappeared from town. But the story goes beyond the conventions to capture the real-life emotions of its characters while at the same time creating situations that both horrify us and leave us wanting to know more.
The script devotes a lot of time to developing Annie as a person who uses her so-called gift only because she must to survive, and Cate Blanchett brilliantly conveys the fact that this talent is truly a curse. Annie is literally haunted, not by ghosts but by guilt; she can never decide when to act on her premonitions or when to discount them as mere dreams. Annie is revered and adored by some members of the community, who rely on her to help them through each day, clinging to her as their only support. Hilary Swank's character Valerie, for instance, keeps coming to Annie for guidance about her alcoholic and abusive husband Donnie but continually does not heed Annie's advice to leave him. Others call her a devil worshipper or poke fun at her talent. Donnie goes so far as to threaten Annie's children and break into her house to try to stop her from reading for his wife. Blanchett's face never really stops showing traces of the pain that she has due to her ability, and it is a testament to her acting talent that she manages to make Annie retain dignity and grace in spite of such burdens.
When the missing girl Jessica (Katie Holmes) is found dead due to the clues of the psychic, the true mystery begins. For the characters in the film it is obvious; her dead body was found on Donnie's property, Donnie and she were having an affair, so he must be the killer. But Annie knows there is more to this than meets the eye, and she must deal with her own worries that the man on trial even though she finds him despicable might not be the true culprit. In her mind endless suspects begin to arise, including the DA Jessica was also having an affair with. Valerie intimates that she's glad Jessica is dead, and Annie begins to suspect her. All the while, Annie is growing closer to Jessica's fiancee Wayne (Greg Kinnear), a man who reminds her very much of her recently deceased husband, yet he too might be a suspect. Thornton's script manages to show all of these theories through Annie's eyes, thus truly leaving the audience in suspense about the identity of the true killer.
The main plot might seem difficult to follow from this basic description, with so many characters moving in and out of the spotlight, but it is just further demonstration of both Raimi and Thornton's talents that they can balance all these elements so ably. No subplot goes unexplored or remains underdeveloped and they all seem necessary to our understanding of the larger picture. Perhaps the best subplot dealt with Buddy, a character played wonderfully by Giovanni Ribisi. He matches Blanchett's talent without the slightest bit of difficulty, displaying intense emotions in his scenes with Blanchett and always giving her fodder for her own performance to feed off of. Buddy has unresolved childhood fears involving repeated dreams about "looking into a blue diamond and having a bad thought" and Annie is unable to help him through his problems. The eventual resolution of this element is shocking and sad, not only in our response to the revelations about Buddy's childhood and his fate in the present but also in Annie being unable to see how to help him and prevent things, despite her "gift."
The Gift then reminds me a great deal of an earlier film of 2000, Unbreakable. While that film showed what it would really be like to find yourself with what are typically known as "superpowers," this one too portrays someone with special abilities realistically, showing that it could be quite negative and even damaging to the person. Blanchett's powerful performance is the emotional center that the fine script and visuals revolve around, and she alone can be credited with earning this film a place among my top ten favorite films of 2000.
