The Gift
Sam Raimi is back on top of his game.

Annie Wilson (Cate Blanchett) possesses a peculiar Gift.

It's been eighteen years since The Evil Dead, a film which spawned two insanely quotable sequels, and elevated director Sam Raimi to be hailed as the king, baby (of the horror genre). Fans flocked to Raimi flick to see two things -- his gonzo kinetic camera style and his sick slapstick humour, which his broad, archetypical characters would try to make sense of onscreen. This intense energy became Raimi's trademark talent, but he wanted to show that there was more to his filmmaking than fancy camera work. So, he threw away all the gimmicks he was popular for to direct A Simple Plan, a thoughtful crime drama. While I respected his attempts to diversify, I remember feeling kind of sad as I left the theatre. Had Raimi turned his back on horror roots in order to be taken seriously by his peers? I certainly thought so when he chose his next film to be a romantic Kevin Costner vehicle, For the Love of the Game. And with this saccharine piece of Hollywood crap, I feared that he was not necessarily maturing as a filmmaker... no, the punk had sold out!

Director and horror icon Sam Raimi.

Then comes The Gift, which is truly that -- a wonderful gift to all Raimi fans. After seeing this supernatural film, you can see can see how A Simple Plan and For the Love of the Game were essential steps towards the making of his return to genre. Without the former, he would not have had the chance to cultivate strong performances from his actors, Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton (who also co-wrote The Gift). With the latter baseball film, he gained exposure in Hollywood, giving him the pull to get such a first-rate ensemble cast for this new film.

The Gift is a nice marriage between old Raimi and new Raimi. Simply from watching the opening scene, it is apparent just how much he has truly grown up. Recall the beginning of The Evil Dead, which cross-cuts between a very self-conscious camera swooping crazily through the forest and a group of four teenagers driving a beat-up tan Oldsmobile. Well,The Gift starts very much the same, with the eeriest looking willow trees you'll ever see. But rather than fly at a breakneck pace, this camera is in no rush at all. It creeps slowly along the Georgian bog and sets the tone just as effectively. We eventually arrive at the home of Annie Wilson (Cate Blanchett) and her three young sons. Parked in front of this family's house is... that same old tan Oldsmobile. Yep, the beat-up Olds that traveled through time with Ash in Army of Darkness has somehow managed transplant itself into Brixton, Georgia. In reality, this car belongs to Raimi himself. He included it in most of his early movies, each time more banged up than the last.

Wayne (Greg Kinnear) finds his life turned upside down when his fiancé disappears.

The weakest part of this film is the script by Tom Epperson and Billy Bob Thornton, which is unexpected. Their previous credit together was the excellent thriller One False Move, and as you may recall, Billy Bob also won an Oscar for his screenplay, Sling Blade a few years back. I didn't think he would be interested in reinforcing the slew of stereotypes associated with the South, yet this film has its fair share. Thankfully, the most well-rounded character is the main one. Annie Wilson is a widow who gets her meager income by performing psychic readings for the townspeople with a deck of symbol-inscribed cards. This is a special gift that runs in her family; one that her grandmother encouraged her not to be afraid of (interesting bit of trivia: Annie is apparently based on Thornton's own psychic grandma). Because the town is basically out in the boondocks, Annie becomes the equivalent to a local psychiatrist. Among her clients are Buddy (Giovanni Ribisi), a half-witted car mechanic with a dark past (but also a heart of gold); and Valerie Barksdale (Hilary Swank), a piece of trailer trash with eighties-style heavy metal-hair, who is afraid to leave her abusive redneck husband, Donnie (Keanu Reeves).

During a meeting with the squeaky-clean principal of her son's school, Wayne (Greg Kinnear), Annie is introduced to his young fiancée, Jessica King (Katie Holmes), also known to be the spoiled, rich town slut. When the couple playfully asks Annie if she can foresee their happy marriage, she has her first disturbing vision. Not long after, Jessica disappears and her father and fiancé, desperate for any help they can get, come to Annie for her psychic abilities. She leads them to the girl's body, but her own motives soon become open to doubt.

Keanu Reeves as Donnie.

The ending of the film tries its best to be a clever twist, but unfortunately, most people will have figured it out about half an hour beforehand. Perhaps because I've watched too many episodes of The Twilight Zone and The X-Files -- it's really hard to not to see it coming. Similarly, some of the set-ups used to convey Annie's premonitions are a tad unimaginative, if not cliché. Among them, there's even a bathtub filling up and overflowing, and taps that drip with blood. These scenes are partially saved however, with Raimi's sure directorial hand, and especially by the film's brilliant sound design and shrieking score, which always comes in just at the right moment. These scares become less about the content and more about creating a very disturbing atmosphere. The film's composer, Christopher Young must have been watching a lot of old Hitchcock. Young's soundtrack is reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann's spine-chilling violin sound. In fact, the most terrifying moment in the film (also one of the first straight-out scares) is extremely dependent on sound. During one of Annie's hallucinatory dream sequences, there is a sudden, shocking jump cut to a psychotic looking fiddler (a weird cameo appearance by fellow composer Danny Elfman). From this moment on, I sat in fear for the rest of the movie, hoping to never have to see or hear that fiddler ever again (he doesn't, thank God).

Giovanni Ribisi as Buddy.

Props again to Raimi for pounding convincing Southern accents out of his diverse cast of international movie stars, teen heartthrobs, former talk show hosts, Oscar-winners and underrated character actors. While Kinnear and Holmes do seem a little out of place at times, Giovanni Ribisi gives it his all and puts a whole lot more into his character than I'm sure was ever there on paper. His first two scenes in particularly are heartbreaking, even if they are superficially supposed to be crowd-pleasing, comic relief. Only when the plot starts veering off into contrived chaos does Ribisi become a little too overwrought. I'm even going to go out on a limb here and say that Keanu Reeves -- who usually gets away with dumb-but-pretty -- puts in one of the most powerful performance of his career. And yes, he too maintains a consistent accent, much better than his last attempt in The Devil's Advocate. But above and beyond, this film belongs to Australian thespian, Cate Blanchett. She is just phenomenal in every aspect of this role, which makes up for the fact that this is not an exceptionally phenomenal film.

Hey, I'm just ecstatic that Raimi is back doing the stuff he's good at -- creating effective, visceral scares. Sometimes it's enough to be content with small victories.

DROOL FACTOR: I'm going to have to pass on this one. Yep, even on the normally drool-worthy Key-aaan-oooooh. Every male in this film is a filthy maniac. Guys can get their fill seeing Katie Holmes' breasts though. Her globes get quite a bit of screen time.

GROSS-OUT FACTOR: Closest thing to gore is a stomach-sinking shot of a decayed corpse.

STRONG CHICK FACTOR:. Kind of questionable actually. But what do you expect? This film is coming from a guy who worships the Three Stooges. Skanky Jane (Holmes) is the weakest, most stereotypical character of the bunch. To top it off, she's violently murdered (punishment for promiscuity), plus she gets a gratuitous nude scene. Battered wife Valerie (Swank) never ends up doing anything about her abuse, then sort of disappears halfway through the film. But again, Blanchett's sensitive and intuitive Annie is what gives this film a heart. She alone makes up for a few misgivings.

-- Julie Ng

The Gift is now playing in theatres.

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