The Gift (2015)
August 12, 2015 12:18 PM - Subscribe

A young married couple's lives are thrown into a harrowing tailspin when an acquaintance from the husband's past brings mysterious gifts and a horrifying secret to light after more than 20 years.
posted by phunniemee (13 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Busy Philipps is in this! I was so excited I blurted out "THAT'S BUSY PHILIPPS" in the theater (went to see the movie by myself) and I got shushed by a lady sitting behind me.
posted by phunniemee at 12:23 PM on August 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


I've wanted to see this since I realized that Joel Edgerton also wrote "The Rover," which I loved (well, "loved" might not be the right word, but I thought it was a very fine picture). I think I may have been one of the half dozen or so people who liked "The Rover," actually.
posted by holborne at 12:27 PM on August 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


I suppose the reason why Simon hated monkeys was cut out....and I really didn't like how Robyn was considered property.
posted by brujita at 1:39 PM on August 12, 2015


Yeah, I was with this movie until the ending. [HERE BE SPOILERS] I think the movie would have been great if they had left Jason Bateman in full life collapse with Robyn making the choice to leave him. But instead of giving her agency they turned her into a prop and added the gross question-mark-rape-question-mark, and I think it cheapened the story.

I don't know if there was a deeper thing with the monkeys that I'm missing, but I assume it had something to do with the speak no evil/see no evil/hear no evil thing? Those three monkeys were sitting in the weird animal figure room in not-Gordo's house and are the only monkey related thing I can make fit.
posted by phunniemee at 1:51 PM on August 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


Gordo also put a card with a monkey on the last "gift" he gave Simon.
posted by brujita at 1:58 PM on August 12, 2015


I kind of only want to see this movie to find out what the terrible dark secret is. Is it worth it?
posted by showbiz_liz at 4:03 PM on August 12, 2015


The movie isn't about the reveal of the secret. I went to go see it, full disclosure, because I had an expiring coupon for the Target next to the movie theater and it was the only thing playing this morning that was 5 bucks and not Minions. But hey, it was pretty good. Much better than I expected it to be, much better than the trailer suggests it'll be. I didn't like the ending but I'd say it's still worth seeing.

Even if for no reason other than to see Jason Bateman being a bad guy.
posted by phunniemee at 4:10 PM on August 12, 2015


The basic plot is that a bullied guy( for whom I didn't have much sympathy once his mindset that women are property was revealed) gets his revenge and harms someone innocent in the process.
posted by brujita at 4:17 PM on August 12, 2015


I don't know if there was a deeper thing with the monkeys that I'm missing, but I assume it had something to do with the speak no evil/see no evil/hear no evil thing?

Robyn mentioned to Gordo that Simon had a phobia about monkeys, and she offered to give him the child's monkey toy he saw with the nursery items. So Gordo played on that fear by using monkey imagery in everything. I think that's all there was to it.

I liked the movie overall, but was distracted a lot by how much sad Joel Edgerton looks like Conan O'Brien in the eyes.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 9:07 PM on August 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


We don't know WHY Simon has the phobia.
posted by brujita at 9:50 PM on August 13, 2015


Kind of a weird movie. If it knew what to do with Robyn at the end (and give her more agency) it would have worked better.
posted by starman at 12:56 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


I liked this movie quite a bit, although I could have done without what may or may not have happened to Robyn after she drank the drugged Gatorade. I'd like to believe Gordo was just fucking with Simon except that the baby did look like Gordo, ugh. I love a stylish thriller, and this one is so twisty. I thought I knew where it was going (it was so much like a 1992 thriller called Unlawful Entry), and then found out I didn't, that it had gone in a much more interesting direction. It was so much more horrifying when Robyn, who was so uneasy about this creepy stranger, gradually came to the realization that the real threat lay within her home: that her husband was a sociopath.
posted by orange swan at 2:41 PM on August 4, 2016


I think I may have been one of the half dozen or so people who liked "The Rover,"

You, me, & Tucker Stone
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:51 AM on June 9, 2021


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