The Gift

Watch: The Gift

12/18/20001h 52m

Premiere Release (US)

~ The only witness to the crime was not even there. ~

Overview:

Annie Wilson, young widow and mother of three, makes her living foretelling others' futures⁠—though her own has become cloudier than even she can see. Threatened by a client's violent husband and plagued by visions of a missing local woman, Annie finds herself pulled into a thicket of lies and deception in which her extraordinary gift may ultimately get her killed.

Director:

Sam Raimi

Status:

Released

Language:

English

Buget:

$10,000,000.00

Revenue:

$12,008,642.00

Key words:

small town
sheriff
dreams
fortune teller
nightmare
court
widow
tarot cards
premonition
backwoods
pond
extrasensory perception
clairvoyant
abusive husband
southern gothic

Cast

Cate Blanchett

~ as ~

Annie Wilson

Giovanni Ribisi

~ as ~

Buddy Cole

Keanu Reeves

~ as ~

Donnie Barksdale

Katie Holmes

~ as ~

Jessica King

Greg Kinnear

~ as ~

Wayne Collins

Hilary Swank

~ as ~

Valerie Barksdale

Michael Jeter

~ as ~

Gerald Weems

Kim Dickens

~ as ~

Linda

Gary Cole

~ as ~

David Duncan

Rosemary Harris

~ as ~

Annie's Granny

View full cast & crew

Reviews (1)

Wuchak
Written 1 year(s) ago
7
Whodunnit Southern Gothic with Cate Blanchett

In a town near coastal Georgia, a widow (Cate Blanchett) struggles to make ends meet with her three boys via her psychic abilities. When a young woman goes missing (Katie Holmes), the authorities ask her for assistance. Greg Kinnear, Keanu Reeves, Hilary Swank, Giovanni Ribisi, Gary Cole and JK Simmons are all on hand.

“The Gift” (2001) meshes plot elements of “Resurrection” (1980) with the setting or tone of “Murder in Coweta County,” “The General’s Daughter” and a little “Cape Fear” (1991). You can’t beat the cast and the Southern town ambiance is great, plus the flawed characters are nicely fleshed-out.

There are no less than five possibilities of who the culprit is and, with 20 minutes to go, it becomes clear who it is. Regrettably, it’s just so cliched and contrived I rolled my eyes, not to mention it ‘steals’ the hope of the viewer. I don’t want to say more because I don’t want to give anything away.

Still, if you can roll with that banal element, it’s a quality drama with a worthy point. Both Cate and Holmes are fetching in a girl-next-door kind of way.

It runs 1 hour, 51 minutes, and was shot in the Savannah area (Guyton, Thunderbolt and Springfield).

GRADE: B-/B