Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11542 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-07-17
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 111 minutes

Amazon.com
Take a pinch of psychic phenomenon, add a dash of Southern gothic, stir in a sharp cast of talented actors, and you'll come up with The Gift, director Sam Raimi's ingenious gumbo of a thriller. It doesn't hold together as well as Raimi's earlier A Simple Plan, but the two films are stylistically connected--The Gift was cowritten (with Tom Epperson) by A Simple Plan's costar, Billy Bob Thornton, who in turn draws from the Deep South milieu that informed his own Sling Blade and his earlier collaboration with Epperson, One False Move. A similar sense of mystery permeates The Gift, in which a small-town Georgia psychic (perfectly played by Cate Blanchett) is tormented by tragic loss and visions connected to the murder of a local vamp (Katie Holmes) whose schoolteacher fiancé (Greg Kinnear) is a prime suspect.

Other suspects include a hot-tempered bully (Keanu Reeves) whose battered wife (Hilary Swank) is one of the psychic's regular clients, and a traumatized local (Giovanni Ribisi) who is tenuously stabilized by therapy and antidepressants. While this trio of potential killers keeps the mystery alive, the requisite red herrings don't add much to the film's low-level suspense. Instead, Raimi is far more effective in creating an atmosphere of anxious dread that wells up from each of these finely drawn characters, starting with the widow psychic's extended mourning for her lost husband, the agonized terror of a beaten wife, and the percolating anger of a cuckolded spouse. All of this makes The Gift a worthy showcase for its esteemed cast, even as its plot twists grow increasingly familiar. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker
After the snows of "A Simple Plan," Sam Raimi warms up by venturing south; his new movie was shot in Savannah, Georgia, although it still tries to chill the blood. Cate Blanchett stars as Annie, who combines the demanding roles of widow, single mother, clairvoyant, and shrink. One of her clients (Hilary Swank) complains of a violent husband (Keanu Reeves), who not only menaces Annie but ends up taking the rap for the disappearance of a local good-time girl (Katie Holmes). Add Greg Kinnear as an ominously pleasant wimp, and you have a full-strength cast bending its talents to fit a small piece of Gothic nonsense. You get sharp frights and looming fogs, plus innumerable nods to the perils of water, but running underneath it all is a sluggish solemnity, a hint that these horrors are meant to be important. As Raimi's budgets have grown, his cackling sense of fun has begun to shrivel. With Giovanni Ribisi, in a performance he may wish to forget. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Honest Film About A Southern Taboo
This movie was made in Savannah, Ga. If you saw Midnight In The Garden, you are already aware of the 'other' presence there of magic, obeah and other supernatural events. Ribisi is just incredible in this film. I really like this guy enormously. He gives 1000 percent in every performance. Ms. Blanchett shines as the gal with the gift. While the story is very over the top, all of the people depicted are right on. I did get a few phone calls from back home (Savannah) asking me if I had anything to do with this film inasmuch as I am known for having the gift, myself. Nope. Not a thing. But I did very much enjoy watching the film and understanding how difficult it is to be special in a small city. Seeing Katie Holmes topless was rather a shock, but this was before Tom came on the scene. Greg Kinnear gives a low-key, endearing but really honest performance. I won't give the ending away but you will be surprised. Enjoyable movie to watch on a rainy weekend night.

Visions And Portents...
Small town psychic reader, Annie Wilson (Cate Blanchett from the Lord Of The Rings trilogy) finds herself caught up in the storm caused by the disappearance of a young woman (Katie Holmes), her impossibly nice fiancé (Greg Kinnear), a wife-beater and his victim (Keanu Reaves and Hilary Swank), and a mentally ill tow-truck driver (Giovanni Ribisi). Annie is the central figure, using her gift to help the police locate the missing girl. Unfortunately, nothing is as it seems, and everyone's a suspect! THE GIFT is another solid thriller from director Sam Raimi (Evil Dead, Darkman, A Simple Plan). He's got quite an ensemble to work with here. I love the entire cast, but Ribisi's character is my favorite. He is somehow endearing and frightening at the same time. If you are a mystery / thriller / horror fanatic, then this one will satisfy. Highly recommended...

I thought The Gift was a excellent film!
Sam Rami, better known for directing the "Evil Dead" and "Spiderman" series of films, did a gem of a movie several years ago with a cast that included two Oscar winners (Cate Blanchett and Hilary Swank) and Oscar-nominated Greg Kinnear. Keanu Reeves, in one of his better performances, is in it, along with Giovanni Ribisi, Katie Holmes and Michael Jeter. What an all-star cast! If that wasn't enough, Oscar winner, Billy Bob Thornton, and Tom Epperson wrote the script. What they created was something very special. It wasn't so much a horror movie as a thriller centered on a widowed mother of three, living in a small southern town and who's able to see the future of other people and the turmoil this eventually creates when the town's promiscuous debutante is murdered. In many ways, I consider The Gift to be Rami's best film to date because of its humanity, its look at a special skill that I believe some people actually have, the premise that there is life after death and that spirits of loved ones can communicate with us, and the struggle of one person has to endure to tell the truth, no matter what the cost to her and her family.

The Gift refers to the psychic ability that widowed Annie Wilson (played by Blanchett) has and how she uses it for card readings to support her family. Keeping a low profile and with many of the town's women coming to her for practical and emotional advice each day, Annie suddenly finds herself caught in the middle of a controversy when she psychically sees the murder of the town's sexually active debutante (played by Katie Holmes). Because of the Annie's visions, the local sheriff is led to believe that the abusive husband (Keanu Reeves) of one of her clients (Hilary Swank) is the murderer, especially since he was having an affair with her. It doesn't help that Reeves' character had also been harassing and threatening Annie's family because of the advice she'd given to his wife. All, however, isn't what it seems. There are lies and deceptions to weed through, and Annie will have to put her life on the line to get to the truth.

What made this move work for me was the realism that Cate Blanchett brought to the role of Annie Wilson. Though British, Blanchett seemed to become an actual low-income woman of the South with three kids to take care of and no prospects of a better future since the death of her husband. I, as a viewer, immediately cared for Annie and her struggles and what she went through after the murder of Katie Holmes' character. Of course, it helps that all of the other actors were right on the mark, too. Keanu Reeves captured the meanness of a redneck abusive husband and the fear he can generate in the lives of the women around him perfectly. Giovanni Ribisi was also great as one of Annie's clients--a mechanic with his own demons to battle, yet he's secretly in love with her and always takes up for her and her children, even at the end. Then, there's Greg Kinnear as the good-hearted school principal, who is the fiancée of Katie Holmes' character, and whom you hope will get together with Annie by the end of the film. The acting is superb and the script flawless and the direction brings everything together into a film that's on its way to becoming a classic. Let me just say again that this isn't a horror movie, but rather a suspenseful thriller with strong supernatural overtones. This is definitely a movie I can watch over and over again, and still enjoy it. The DVD has a behind-the-scenes' featurette that is quite good. Highly recommended.