TWO SEPARATE GIFTS
by Ed Owens
There is a scene in THE GIFT, the latest from schlock director turned respectable auteur Sam Raimi, when Cate Blanchett's character is called in to the office of the local prosecutor. As she walks in, the prosecutor turns to face her and the audience is treated to one of those "Just in case you missed it the first time, here's an important piece of information" flashbacks that sounds the death knell for any subtle or intelligent writing which may have come before it. These sorts of flashbacks are particularly damning in psychological thrillers/murder mysteries, precisely the reason why this one stands out so strongly in The Gift. The scene, occurring at roughly the middle of the picture, signals the precise moment that The Gift switches from a well-executed character study to a shockingly predictable murder mystery.

The film's marketing has hinged on two key names, those of director Sam Raimi and co-writer Billy Bob Thornton. While both men share some of the credit for the success of the first half, both men must also share blame for the embarrassment of the second (though certainly not equally...even the first half suffers from some awkwardly scripted moments, and the second half is so banal that only a complete rewrite could have saved it). The first half showcases a synergy between the two, with Raimi beautifully realizing Thornton's richly detailed Southern Gothic mosaic.

The cast certainly helps. The film's characters risk devolving into little more than a catalogue of southern stereotypes, but each actor manages to flesh them out beyond what's on the page. Blanchett is superb as the film's center, Annie Wilson, while Keanu Reeves rages as a good ole boy prone to violence. The most difficult performance has to be Giovanni Ribisi's, whose severely troubled mechanic goes through more mood swings than I could count. Ribisi is not always successful, but he pulls it off well enough to keep the film above the material... ...for a while.

The second half of the film is so mired in hitting on every murder-mystery cliche that the film rapidly falls apart, completely forsaking the tone and character it had spent so much time developing in the first half. Given that most people will have figured it out before the opening credits are over, getting to the film's big "revelation" totters dangerously on the edge of laborious. In the end, it's Blanchett that manages to hold the film together, but not entirely without casualties (particularly disappointing is the hideous handling of a pivotal scene in the development of Ribisi's character). This is not to say the second half is entirely without high points (Michael Jeter gives a beautifully smarmy performance as a defense attorney, and Blanchett acts her heart out in an otherwise throw-away scene with Greg Kinnear), but the overall sentiment is one of having been there, done that...and The Gift offers nothing to counter that horrible feeling of cinematic deja vu. The film closes with one of the most disingenuous epilogues I've seen since Finding Forrester (see below), but long before I had already started fondly remembering the first half.

A multiple choice question for you:
CAST AWAY is....
a) a failed experiment.
b) the most overrated film of the year.
c) what should have happened to the first and last twenty minutes of the movie.
d) all of the above

I've heard Cast Away being talked about for over a year, with most of the emphasis being on the fact that cast and crew took some time off so that lead actor Tom Hanks could lose some weight and gain some facial hair. Now everybody tends to focus on Hanks' solo performance on the island...that and the fact that for well over an hour, there is no music. Focusing on the island section is probably best, given that any genuine impact the film may have had is gutted by a bloated denouement that, at best, is mildly cringe-inducing.

The opening sequence is far more benign, though certainly no less inane. After a rocky directorial start in the form of a "package cam" straight out of the Stylish Directing for Dummies book, Robert Zemeckis settles in and does his best not to give away the fact that the first fifteen minutes is little more than a heavy-handed setup for the film's one big set piece. The word "time," in conjunction with more clocks than I could count, is uttered no less than a hundred times to make sure that even the lowest SAT score in the audience will know where the film is going thematically. Then comes the plane crash. Technically, the crash is impressive (though several recent films, such as Final Destination and Fight Club, have better ones, in my opinion), but there is the nagging question about how Hanks' character could possibly have survived without so much as a scratch to show for it. Once on the island, Hanks is an accident waiting to happen, but he somehow comes through a particularly violent plane crash unscathed.

The next seventy to eighty minutes are surprisingly engaging. There are a few awkward missteps (and one big, fat freaking cheat in the form of the caption "Four Years Later," a transition which skips over one of the most pivotal moments of Hanks island sojourn - don't worry, though, the script gives Hanks a nifty monologue to tell us all about it), but for the most part, Zemeckis and Hanks do good work. Some of the island scenery is breathtaking, like the view from the giant summit. It's truly impressive what can be done without much dialogue or music, and the film almost manages to evoke some genuine emotion.

Unfortunately, Hanks has to leave the island, and his departure is accompanied by one of the most jarringly obnoxious musical cues in cinematic history (the culprit is Alan Silvestri). It's pretty much downhill from there, with everyone speaking in moral platitudes and Hanks looking troubled. I didn't shift at all during the island section, but the return home was infinitely more tedious. I wish Cast Away were better, if only for the sake of the second act, but when all is said and done, it's not. You're not left with the good experience of the island section, but with the worthless moralizing of the final act...and ending on such a low note is never a good thing.

For the second time in less than two weeks, I have felt cheated. The first time was in Cast Away, though that could technically count as two cheats. Robert Zemeckis covers over some difficult narrative territory by using the caption, "Four Years Later," skipping a pivotal moment in Hanks island stint. A bit later, he cheats again, this time only saying "Four Weeks Later," but with even more deadening impact, given the fact that the four weeks in question conveniently center on the castaway's reintroduction to society.

The latest cheat comes from none other than Gus Van Sant, and his cheat is no more excusable than Zemeckis'. Not that this latest cheat isn't to be expected. Good Will Hunting cheated, but with at least a modicum of narrative justification. Van Sant never shows us the math, but then again, chances are we wouldn't understand it if he did. With FINDING FORRESTER, Van Sant gets lazy, covering over the conspicuously absent material with shots of adoring faces and an obtrusive score that tell us how good the missing material is without letting it speak to us directly. This is particularly heinous given that the film has, as one of its many themes, the notion of letting our voices be heard. All the more disappointing that one of the most important ones in the film was silenced.

Perhaps there was a reason for this travesty. Perhaps Van Sant was aware of the fact that no material, regardless how good, could live up to the expectations the film itself had generated. Even if that were the case, the blame merely shifts to the writing, which already has to bear its own fair share (my apologies to friends of the writer, Mike Rich). Either way, the conclusion one draws is the same...someone was lazy.

The film has several other weaknesses to be sure. Much is being made of Van Sant's "discovery" of Robert Brown. Apparently, the film has been recut for its wide release, with the better parts of Mr. Brown's performance left behind. His delivery is wooden, stiff, and unconvincing, while his face seems limited to three expressions (to label them could spoil his Oscar moments for those who haven't seen the film). Sean Connery fares only slightly better, mostly because the majority of his scenes are opposite Brown.

More damning is the film's disturbing resemblance to Good Will Hunting. The comparison would have been inevitable regardless, but Van Sant has made it all too easy (there is a scene where our Wunderkind shows his mental prowess to the surprise of someone who dared to question him...and it comes at almost precisely the same time in the film as Hunting's one-upmanship of the college kid at the bar). Perhaps a better comparison would have been with Van Sant's own Psycho.

But such nitpicking is unnecessary given that the film cheats us out of our moment. The uneven attempt to compensate us with a protracted epilogue only underscores the fact, evidence enough that perhaps even the filmmakers themselves were aware of the problem, but were just too lazy to fix it.

CineScene, 2001