The Gift is
a horror/thriller film that is written and directed by Joel Edgerton. He also
stars in it with odd auburn hair and eyes that in certain lights look almost
black. It also stars Jason Bateman as Simon and a great Rebecca Hall as Robyn. It’s
about a couple who move into a new house & whilst out buying new furniture they
run into a man from Simon’s old high school. His name is Gordo, or as Simon
used to call him ‘Weirdo’. The film follows the couple as they have Gordo’s
friendship ‘forced’ on them. It was a pretty enjoyable film, for the most part.
The film is
more about suspense, the general feeling of unease around Gordo and ultimately
about how much of an arsehole Simon is. As his wife tells him, he was a bully
when he knew Gordo at school and he still is now. It’s this bullying aspect of
his personality that led Gordo to stalk the couple, to force himself into their
lives with presents and social awkwardness. This is the part of the review
where I spoil the film for you so I can review it so if you haven’t already
watched it but were planning to then I’d come back when you’re done. When Simon
and Gordo were at school Simon, being the bullying nightmare that he is,
decided one day to spread a rumour that Gordo is gay, thus ruining his life.
Seems as
them being kids was a few decades ago having a rumour that you’re gay was even
worse then than it is now – and it can still be pretty terrible now, which is
an understatement. So he was mercilessly bullied and in the end Gordo’s father
tried to kill him. Simon really didn’t seem too bothered by this fact, happy to
shrug it off as having nothing to do with him. Apparently in his world everyone
is responsible for their own actions, apart from him of course. Now all of this
is revealed slowly, in a great way and with a stunning performance given from
Rebecca Hall. Her character Robyn tries hard to give Gordo the benefit of the
doubt, she tries to defend him & really be his friend. This is why the
ending is so fucking annoying.
As the film
goes on Robyn is pregnant and in the end she gives birth, she had had a
pregnancy before but it hadn’t worked out. Sadly she has realised that her
husband is a totally nasty piece of work by the time she gives birth so it’s
all a bit of a mess. So we’ve spent the film getting to know Robyn as she works
from home, we learn that she’s a woman who is caring and smart and oh how the
film then decides that she is worth nothing. Less than nothing, she’s now
firmly Simon’s Wife and that’s that. You see after Simon has beat the crap out
of Gordo & told him to stay out of their lives forever that is when Gordo
puts his final plan into place to truly fuck Simon over.
It goes a
little something like this: Gordo has been breaking into their home and filming
him watching Robyn, earlier in the film we see Robyn struggle with a pill
addiction and one day she randomly collapses, nothing really happens and she
wakes up a bit confused; but we find out that that’s not at all what happened
as actually Gordo drugged her, and while she was knocked out he, whilst wearing
a monkey mask – Simon has a phobia of monkeys – films himself touching Robyn
and moving her onto a bed, then the recording stops. So Simon, furious and
petrified that Gordo has raped his wife, he runs to her to see if she’s okay
and tells her all about it and see’s if she’s scarred for life. Oh wait, that’s
not at all what happened is it. No because if it was I wouldn’t be writing
this.
So after
the recording stops Simon, furious, goes to the hospital where his new-born son
and wife are and Gordo calls him up after Simon fails to catch him. Gordo
explains that this is his revenge against Simon – because this has nothing to
do with Robyn. His revenge is Simon not being sure, even if it’s just for a
split second before he can look his child in the eyes, or in the time before
getting a DNA test but just for a moment of not knowing whether his kid is
actually his or whether it’s Gordo’s. So from Edgerton’s point of view that’s
just awful for Simon right? It’s kind of implied that in the end, especially in
the alternate end, everything’s fine and Gordo got his revenge by making Simon
feel just darn awful. But despite showing Robyn as a full human being the whole
film through the film doesn’t seem to care much for her at the end. We simply
get a relieved looking Simon as Robyn is giving him a withering look.
Let’s just
take a quick second to do something that Edgerton apparently didn’t: look at
this from her point of view. Should Simon tell her, or should she find the DVD with
the footage Gordo filmed this is what she has to experience: the knowledge that
she was drugged on purpose, the knowledge that she was touched while she was
knocked out, that she may have been raped, that the man who did that to her did
it to get back at her husband, that it all had nothing to do with her, that the
man who did it was one who she had been nice to the entire time, that she has
had a man’s hands on her and she has no recollection of it, that he could have
done anything to her when the camera was off and she was unconscious, that she,
even for a second, thinks that the child she carried for months doesn’t have
the father she thought, that anyone would torture her, even for a second, like
this just to get back at her arsehole husband. I would never see rape as a
punishment, I’d never see it as a punishment to a woman’s husband, and even if
it was raping her for spreading a rumour as a teenager I’d still say you’ve
gone way too far.
I have made
this point a hundred times before and I’ll say it again: Women are not things,
owned by men, that can be used as things to be hurt, killed, or ‘broken’ to
upset those men. We’re just not, despite what shitty male writers would like to
think. There’s this thing that happens when the majority of films are written
by men, directed by men, and about men: they usually have a
wife/daughter/mother etc. and they usually get killed. When you don’t have an
equal amount of films about women then we don’t really see male husbands etc.
getting killed for being husbands, or husbands getting raped for being husbands
to a female protagonist and so on. Now I happen to think that watching women
get killed, raped, abused and so on for the sins of their male family members
over and over and over can fuck a girl, or guy, up. But that’s just me.
P.S.
Here’s an
ending that doesn’t do this, that fits with the rest of the film, and doesn’t
leave the female viewers with a feeling that they don’t matter, that no matter
how human they are at the end of the day they’re still less human than their
male partner:
Simon gets
home, he opens another gift that has been left for him on his porch. He takes
it inside and he opens it, it’s a carrier for his new-born son. As he’s
unwrapping it he sees something inside it and he takes out three separate gifts.
Each gift has a number on it, from 1 to 3. He opens the first one, in it is a
key and he realises that it’s the key to his house. Horrified he opens the next
package and it’s a CD, he plays it and he hears a recording of some awful
things he said about Gordo when he thought he couldn’t hear. Then he opens the
third, and the final, gift and it’s a DVD that has play me written on it. So he
puts it in the DVD player and sits terrified and furious as the footage shows
someone, Gordo, breaking into his house; he watches as the person filming goes
into his whole house, as they sit filming his wife at the window, as they film
him when he doesn’t realise it. Then it goes to a shot of his drink from a
night when he randomly collapsed, a night he has no recollection of. He looks
completely shocked and he recoils from the screen in horror as the camera is
turned around to reveal Gordo wearing a monkey mask, it’s like something out of
his nightmares.
Then the
camera pans down and it shows Simon, totally unconscious and lying on his
bedroom floor. Gordo sits on top of Simon and strokes his face, his chest and
then his hand moves out of shot and Gordo turns the camera back around to
himself and he laughs. Simon, utterly terrified, starts pulling at his clothes,
trying to tear his own skin off. Then the TV screen goes to black as the DVD
finishes, we see Simon’s terrified face in the reflection. Simon screams and
punches the TV, it shatters and falls to the floor. Simon runs to the shower
and scrubs and scrubs but nothing works. He gets dressed and gets in the car,
he drives to the hospital where his wife is. He’s worried that Gordo will go
hurt her next. As he gets
there he finds his wife’s room is empty, as he goes to look for her he sees
Gordo but can’t quite catch him; he runs out of the hospital where he thinks he
went, his hair is still wet and he’s freaking out. It’s clear Simon can’t
collect his thoughts and is screaming on the inside. Then his phone rings.
We see
Gordo stood inside a hospital corridor, watching Simon stand outside and he
smiles. He explains to Simon that he isn’t gay, that the rumour ruined his
entire life, that it set in motion events that he could never recover from. That
he barely survived his Dad trying to kill him, that there is no coming back
from knowing your own father wants you dead, and that he hasn’t been able to
trust anyone since. He thought that he could turn his life around when he met Simon
again, that if he could befriend him – the man who ruined his life - then he
could be liked, hell maybe he could even be loved. It was even better when
Robyn was nice to him, that she stood up for him, and then he heard Simon
insult him, call him a freak, say he was obsessed with Robyn. Then he knew that
there was no coming back, no changing who he was, what he was.
So he
decided to get his revenge. The rumour that he was gay had always burned in his
brain, even as time had been kinder to gay men it hadn’t mattered – that one
story that Simon had refused to take back had been the end for him. So he used
it against Simon, now he hadn’t actually done anything – or had he? There was
no knowing what Gordo had done to him, what he had or hadn’t touched, and he
was never going to tell him. He wanted him to feel as violated, as humiliated
as he had done when Simon had abused him, insulted him and tortured him for
years. He asks if Simon wants to tear his skin off, that if he wants he could
ask his Dad to set him alight because he knows how that can really give you a
new body. That he was lucky the flames had spared his face, that Simon’s face,
his body is perfect, that he was jealous.
Simon
screams at him and has no idea what to say, what to do. He shouts down the
phone at Gordo to tell him what he did, that he’ll go to the police. Gordo
explains that he will too, he knows Simon, and that if he was a bully once then
he’s probably ruined other lives too. That he could have fun finding those
people and seeing how they feel about Simon. Gordo tells Simon that he never
wants to hear from him again, that he should try to be a better man, a better
human being for his son. Simon runs back to his wife, embraces her and
apologises, promises he’ll be better and he kisses his son on the forehead.
Robyn has a look that shows she’s not quite sure if he can be better, but she
hides it from him. Gordo walks down the hospital hallway, throwing away the
phone and then the credits roll.
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