One out of many lessons that the movies have taught us is that history has a tendency to return at the most inopportune time and make life a living hell. If there’s an incident you’d prefer no-one ever hear of, make sure you scrub away all evidence. And if there’s someone else involved in this life-changing secret? It’s probably a good idea not to accept their friend request on Facebook. Nevertheless, past mistakes can haunt the best of us, as is the case for Jason Bateman’s character in The Gift.
In the film, Bateman plays Simon, who’s happily married to his lovely spouse Robyn (Rebecca Hall) until an old school chum from his past looms into view. Enter Gordo, played by the film’s director Joel Edgerton, a seemingly nice returnee from Simon’s younger years. The trouble is, his sinister re-appearance coincides with a clutch of eerie encounters, leading Simon to believe that Gordo’s about to blab on their 20-year old secret.
Lifting its tone from a raft of thrillers dedicated to this type of stalker/obsessive fare, Edgerton’s debut holds a lot of promise. The eighties were heavily populated by material of this ilk, and with the resurgence of pioneering genre offerings such as The Guest tipping the tables on established formulas, we could be in for a real treat.
The Gift opens in theaters on July 31.
Simon (Jason Bateman) and Robyn (Rebecca Hall) are a young married couple whose life is going just as planned until a chance encounter with an acquaintance from Simon’s high school sends their world into a harrowing tailspin. Simon doesn’t recognize Gordo (Joel Edgerton) at first, but after a seemingly coincidental series of encounters proves troubling, a horrifying secret from their past is uncovered after nearly 20 years. As Robyn learns the unsettling truth about what happened between Simon and Gordo, she starts to question: how well do we really know the people closest to us, and are past bygones ever really bygones?
From the producer of Whiplash and The Purge, Jason Blum, comes a chilling psychological thriller that marks the feature directorial debut of acclaimed actor and writer Joel Edgerton (The Great Gatsby, Zero Dark Thirty, Warrior).
