Movie Review: The Gift (2000)

The Gift (2000) directed by Sam Raimi

Annie Wilson (Kate Blanchett) lives in a small town in the American South. She has three boys and her husband died a year ago in a factory accident. She makes a living doing readings, using a special deck of cards and her psychic abilities. She also has dreams and visions, though much more rarely. Her clients include Buddy (Giovanni Ribisi), who has troubling and unclear memories of his father, and Valerie (Hillary Swank), whose abuse by her husband Donnie (Keanu Reeves) is pretty obvious without psychic abilities. Annie tells Buddy he needs to confront his memories so he can get past them and Valerie that she needs to leave her abusive husband. Donnie is very unhappy with the situation and threatens Annie and her children. Her oldest son Michael (Lynsee Provence) has been having trouble at the school, pulling Annie into meetings with the principle Wayne (Greg Kinnear). Wayne is engaged to Jessica (Katie Holmes), daughter of a local rich man who also cats around quite a bit. The situation gets more difficult and dramatic when Jessica disappears and her father enlists Annie's aid to find the body, which turns up in Donnie's pond. 

While this movie combines a mystery story with a psychic story, it works hard at balancing the two and maintaining a realistic tone. Raimi, who is famous for directing the original Spider-man and Evil Dead trilogies, keeps his cinematic style to a minimum here. Annie's psychic abilities are bare-bones and depicted as such, giving her clues to what's going on without giving her whole picture. The limited information keeps the mystery side of the story in suspense, as the various suspects in Jessica's murder all seem plausible. The cast does a good job all around, especially with Reeves acting counter to stereotype as a villain. The movie is neither hysterical or over-the-top, a straightforward story that delivers an interesting mystery with twists until the end.

Recommended. 

I watched this streaming on Kanopy, a free service available from many public libraries, in June 2025.