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“Annie’s got an enormous sense of guilt, because she feels responsible for the fact that she couldn’t stop her husband’s death,” says Blanchett. “She has to actually come to terms with why she has survived. I think that all the people that Annie encounters are troubled by something, but she’s a single mother with three boys and doesn’t have time to deal with it. And that compounds her sense of guilt.”
Hilary Swank as Donnie’s
abused wife, Valerie
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Annie tries to do her best for her children and friends - including Buddy, a disturbed young car mechanic played by Giovanni Ribisi - by giving occasional ‘readings’. But she gets drawn into deeper water when she comes across local rich girl Jessica King (Katie Holmes) in flagrante with the District Attorney (Gary Cole) in a back room of the country club. The nightmare really begins, however, when Jessica disappears and Annie’s ‘visions’ help police find her body. Before long, Annie is being threatened by Donnie Barksdale (Keanu Reeves playing a hair-trigger southern redneck with considerable relish), who is accused of the crime. She also finds herself hated by half the town of Brixton, Georgia, whose inhabitants don’t welcome the presence of someone who can see into their secrets. As the investigation gets more complicated - and as Buddy takes gruesome revenge on his abusive father - The Gift gets the maximum tension out of the familiar genre of a small-town thriller with supernatural undertones.
But the film also - as one would expect from the writer of Sling Blade and the director of A Simple Plan - travels down other roads as well.
“I think the movie deals with psychic phenomena in an interesting way, a very human way,” says Greg Kinnear, who plays Wayne Collins, the principal of the local high school. “But that’s not what the story is about: the story is about people. The psychic element is kind of threaded nicely throughout the film, and I think it will make people ask some interesting questions, like whether they believe or they don’t.”
Keanu Reeves as redneck Donnie Barksdale, who is accused of Jessica’s murder
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Annie tries to do her best for her children and friends - including Buddy, a disturbed young car mechanic played by Giovanni Ribisi - by giving occasional ‘readings’. But she gets drawn into deeper water when she comes across local rich girl Jessica King (Katie Holmes) in flagrante with the District Attorney (Gary Cole) in a back room of the country club. The nightmare really begins, however, when Jessica disappears and Annie’s ‘visions’ help police find her body. Before long, Annie is being threatened by Donnie Barksdale (Keanu Reeves playing a hair-trigger southern redneck with considerable relish), who is accused of the crime. She also finds herself hated by half the town of Brixton, Georgia, whose inhabitants don’t welcome the presence of someone who can see into their secrets. As the investigation gets more complicated - and as Buddy takes gruesome revenge on his abusive father - The Gift gets the maximum tension out of the familiar genre of a small-town thriller with supernatural undertones.
But the film also - as one would expect from the writer of Sling Blade and the director of A Simple Plan - travels down other roads as well. “I think the movie deals with psychic phenomena in an interesting way, a very human way,” says Greg Kinnear, who plays Wayne Collins, the principal of the local high school. “But that’s not what the story is about: the story is about people. The psychic element is kind of threaded nicely throughout the film, and I think it will make people ask some interesting questions, like whether they believe or they don’t.”
| “Most of the psychics I spoke to said that their ability is a gift they want to give back, because with the gift comes enormous responsibility” |
At the centre of all this is Annie, a woman who wants nothing more than to be able to pick up the pieces of her life and devote her energies to her kids. She is, however, constantly plagued by horrific visions of events that have taken place unwitnessed - or have yet to take place. And ultimately, her only hope of survival lies in her ability to make use of the ‘gift’ she never asked for, as it becomes clear that Donnie is not the real killer - and that the real killer needs to kill Annie before she reveals his identity.
Producer Jim Jacks (The Mummy, A Simple Plan) first saw Thornton and co-writer Tom Epperson’s script some five or six years ago, and never forgot it. So, when he ended up with a deal at Paramount, The Gift was one of the first things he wanted to do. Ruth Vitale of Paramount’s Classics division - which recently released the film in the US - then showed the script to Lakeshore chairman Tom Rosenberg, whose response was immediate: “I’m not just interested - I’m going to do it.”
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