The Gift

Colour, 35mm
USA, 2000, 111 min
Section: Horizons

Synopsis

Recently widowed Annie Wilson lives with her three children in a small town in Georgia. She is known by her neighbours to have inherited her grandmother’s gift of seeing into the future and reading cards. Time goes by in the small town, broken only by occasional flights into the future, until young and wealthy Jessica King is found strangled. The first suspect is Donnie, a boorish racist who abuses his wife as the whole town knows. But maybe the murderer is Jessica’s lover David, or Buddy who was sexually abused as a child, or perhaps Valerie who knew all about the hot-and-heavy love affair Jessica and her husband were having? Annie’s special abilities might help solve the case but as she can’t control her gift her life is also in danger. As usual, Sam Raimi has managed to evoke an atmosphere of tension and fear, casting actors in roles in which they normally don’t appear – Keenu Reeves as the violent and loutish Donnie, Cate Blanchett as a homebound mother of three and Hilary Swank as an abused, unhappy and betrayed wife.

About the director

Sam Raimi (b. 1959, Michigan, USA) began making short films on Super 8 as a boy. In 1983 he shot his first feature-length film, The Evil Dead, financed by local doctors and businessmen. The movie rather surprisingly became a hit at the Cannes IFF. Other films followed: Crimewave (1985), The Evil Dead II (1987), Darkman (1990), Army of Darkness (1993), The Quick and the Dead (1995), A Simple Plan (1998), For the Love of the Game (1999), The Evil Dead: Hail to the King (2000) and The Gift (2000). Raimi co-produced John Woo’s American debut Hard Target (1995), co-wrote the Coen brothers’ The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), and co-produced Timecop (1994).