The Gift - Beware of Joel Edgertons bearing gifts

‘The Gift’ isn’t exactly a new premise – a slightly sinister man starts harassing a nice, middle-class couple and taking things just a little too far, however, don’t let its lack of originality put you off.  It’s actually pretty fun – if your idea of fun is ‘dark and disturbing.’

Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall play the married couple, but it’s Joel Edgerton who’s the real star, not just because he plays the part of creepy and disturbed to a tee, but also because he wrote and directed the film, too.  One day, Mr and Mrs average are shopping in a store, when they bump into an old ‘friend’ – however, it turns out that they don’t really want to be friends with him any more (giving away the reasons would be classed as ‘spoilers’) and pretty quickly decide to give him the Facebook equivalent of ‘ignoring’ him.  However, he’s not one to just slip quietly into the night.

It may sound like it’s just your average ‘stalker’ film, but there’s more to it than that.  Without wishing to give anything away, it’s not just Joel Edgerton who has a dark side and all is not what it seems.

It’s not a fast-paced movie and its runtime is closer to two hours than the average one and a half.  However, it does go pretty quickly and builds tension well, keeping you guessing as to various characters’ motives and what exactly they plan on doing about them.

Don’t go expecting a thriller – it’s more a dark, drama with a lot of tense, creepy moments.  If you feel like something a little deeper than your average stalker/slasher movie, then this one should fill nearly two hours of your life quite nicely and still give you something to talk about afterwards.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that