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The Gift | 2015 | R | - 5.5.6
The lives of a couple (Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall) are disrupted by the arrival of one of the husband's high school buddies (Joel Edgerton). The peculiar friend begins showing up unannounced at their home and leaving lavish gifts for them. Also with Allison Tolman, Busy Philipps, Tim Griffin, Beau Knapp, PJ Byrne, Wendell Pierce and David Denman. Directed by Joel Edgerton. [1:48]
SEX/NUDITY 5 - A husband and his wife hug in shadows in their bedroom and they appear to be nude (no detail is clear); they bend over out of the frame and the camera cuts away to morning in the kitchen (sex is implied). From outside an office building window, we see a man and a woman briefly hug and kiss.
► A DVD shows footage of a woman passing out and falling down (please see the Substance Use category for more details) and afterward a man wearing a monkey mask straddles the unconscious women, runs his hand from her throat to mid-chest, he waves at the camera and the screen goes to static; the woman's husband watches the footage cries (the implication is that the masked man raped her) and in a confrontation afterward, the masked man states to the husband, "I didn't do it, or maybe I did" (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details).
► A foggy glass shower door shows the outline of a nude woman from the small of the back to the shoulders; the camera cuts to her front door, where she wears a robe that revels her lower thighs, and lower legs as she steps out and back into the house. A foggy shower door shows the vague outline of a nude woman's side, shoulder and arm; she wipes condensation from the glass and wakes up from a nightmare (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). A black and white impressionist ink sketch depicts the buttocks, thighs, legs and feet of a woman, all covered by a billowy cloth. A woman wearing a deeply cut blouses reveals cleavage in three scenes. A woman reveals a large amount of cleavage in a deeply cut dress at a dinner gathering. At a party a woman wears a dress that is shoulder-less with a halter collar and a deep slit from the throat to below the bosom (a small amount of skin shows) and the skirt reveals her lower thighs and legs. A woman wears tight stretchy yoga pants, jeans and legging-like trousers that reveal the lines of her legs and buttocks in several scenes.
► A man mocks another man (he is not there), reaches deep into the front of his trousers, unzips his fly and sticks out a wiggling finger, dancing and pretending to be the other man.
► A wife presents her husband at their Christmas tree with a pregnancy test stick that reads positive and they hug; in several following scenes, we see the woman with a large belly. A wife calls to her husband that her water broke (we see no fluids) and the camera cuts to a close-up of her face and shoulders in a hospital gown, with a glimpse of bent bare knees (the scene is silent, but we see her face screaming and grimacing in pain), and a nurse holds up a slimy baby for her to hold briefly as the scene ends.
► A woman tells another woman that a man reported a crime in high school: an older male student in a parked car molested a younger, gay student who was "sent away" afterwards (implying institutionalization); the second woman asks a doctor who went to the high school at the time about the incident. A woman and a doctor argue and the doctor states that a man that reported a crime made up the story to bully a younger man when they were in high school. A husband tells his wife that his former male friend wants to have sex with her and play mommies and daddies, and then, "I think he wants you to be his wife. I think he wants to be me. He likes you so much." We hear that a husband and his wife have been trying to conceive a child and that she suffered a recent miscarriage. A husband tells friends at a party that they are trying to conceive and she tells a female neighbor the same. A man tells the husband and wife together that they should have no problem having a family.
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VIOLENCE/GORE 5 - A man meets another man, apologizes for taunting him in high school and the second man says that it is too late, causing the first man to knock a bin of papers out of the man's hand, push him and knock him down, where he smashes the side of his face into the pavement and kicks the bin on his way off screen (we see the victim later, his face scraped, with a small bandage at the temple and his arm in a sling).
► At a house party, guests hear two loud thumps and then a large picture window shatters into the dining room; women scream and everyone runs outside where a car alarm screeches for a few seconds before a guest silences it; the homeowner takes a ball bat outside and another man attacks him from behind, then other men pull the attacker away as he screeches and curses at the homeowner. A wife slaps her husband in the face.
► At a man's home a husband tells his wife twice to go to the car and tells another man to stop visiting them; driving to the entrance gate with his wife, the husband cannot make the gate open, honks loudly, curses, pounds his steering wheel, exits his car angrily and walks toward the house whereupon the man inside uses a remote to open the gate. A man drives to another man's home, pounds on the door, a woman answers and he demands to see a man and the woman says that the man does not live there. A man drives erratically to a hospital, swerving in and out of traffic and in a corridor, and sees another man with a scraped temple and cheek and wearing a sling on his arm; the first man chases the other man, then runs outside and cannot catch him but he receives a phone call from the man, who mocks him.
► A man with a scraped face and an arm in a sling visits a woman in the hospital and congratulates her on the birth of her baby; asleep in bed at first, she is startled awake and gasps as she sees him. A woman inside a shower stall wipes condensation from the door glass and from her viewpoint, we see a man standing close to the door, staring in at her; the camera cuts to her in bed, be startled awake from a nightmare (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details).
► A woman finds her empty pond filled with Koi fish and a few days later she looks off-screen with a terrorized expression as we hear her on the phone saying that a man may have killed the fish (the camera cuts to dead fish floating in the pond). Two detectives visit a husband and his wife at their home and we hear that their dog is missing; a few nights later, the woman walks down a dark hallway at home, peeks out a glass door, and the dog jumps against the glass and barks, frightening her.
► A man opens small wrapped gift boxes and finds a CD and a DVD, which he plays; the CD is of him mocking a man whom he bullied in high school as the first man's wife listens (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details) while the DVD's grainy footage implies a man raped the viewer's wife (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details).
► A man argues with his boss over the phone in the entrance to a men's room and the boss fires the man. A husband walks into his wife's hospital room (she had a baby) and she tells him she does not want to be with him any longer and he walks out. A wife will not speak to her husband as she holds their baby in the nursery window and the curtain closes him off; he leans against the wall of the corridor, sinks to a squat and holds his head in his hands. A woman meets her husband in the kitchen one morning and he asks why she was asleep for so many hours the previous day and night; she says that she had a fall, but he shouts that she is taking drugs, she denies it (please see the Substance Use category for more details) and they have a prolonged screaming match about her previous prescription drug use for depression. A husband yells at his wife about seeing a doctor and "chewing pills" and asks, "Are you mixing pills with something else?" and she shouts that she was not. We hear that a man has a phobia of monkeys and another man wears a monkey mask in a DVD video that he sends to the first man; the first man grimaces at the monkey face in the DVD.
► We hear that a man was a high school bully who shamed a male classmate with a story of molestation (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details). A woman reports that a boy's dad was charged with attempted murder for trying to burn his son to death because he thought he was gay. A wife asks if her husband molested a man and another man says the victim was never molested at all (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details), and that the husband made up the story and ruined the man's life. We hear that other kids at school repeatedly beat up a boy at high school. A man tells a husband and his wife that his own wife just left him and took their children with her. A man yells that another man started rumors about him that caused him to lose his job and become unemployable. A woman discovers a background check folder and reads that a man received a discharge from the service for "conduct unbecoming," and was charged with a break-in and an attempted abduction of a youth. . A woman says of a man, "I think he wants to hurt us." A man writes "weirdo" on the dry erase board on his refrigerator and another man who was called "weirdo" in high school reads it later, staring and looking stunned. A man says, "Bad things could be a gift."
► A man and a woman brush their teeth, but we see no spit; in another scene, she brushes her teeth and spits twice (we see white spit once, going into the sink but not hitting it).
LANGUAGE 6 - About 19 F-words and its derivatives, 13 scatological terms, 7 anatomical terms, 5 mild obscenities, name-calling (crazy, stupid, idiot, delusional, weirdo, creepy, Gordo the Weirdo, Dr. Smells-a-Bit, Simple Simon), exclamations (shut-up), 1 religious profanity (GD), 9 religious exclamations (Oh my God, Holy [scatological term deleted], God, Jesus, Thank God, Oh God).
SUBSTANCE USE - A bag of clear solution hangs on a stand in a hospital room and a tube runs downward (we do not see an attachment to the patient's arm), a woman walks into her bedroom and collapses on the floor as the camera cuts to a knocked-over sports drink bottle on the kitchen counter (implying that she was drugged; please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details), a woman takes out a pill case in which we see pills of several varieties wrapped in a tissue and then we see her gulping as if swallowing something, pills of several types are thrown into a sink from off-screen and down the drain with water (it is unclear who is throwing them out), and a woman looks into a neighbor's medicine cabinet to find several bottles and foil packs of prescription medications. A bottle of wine and empty wine glasses in close-up are seen on a table in a furniture store, a woman invites a neighbor woman for a glass of wine "anytime," a woman tells a man that she does not drink alcohol, a woman finds a bottle of wine outside the front door of her house, a husband and his wife take a bottle of wine to a friend, a husband and his wife sit with a bottle of wine on the table and a glass of wine each (no one drinks), a husband gets a bottle of beer from the refrigerator and he drinks from it, a husband and a male friend drink from bottles of beer, a man tells friends that he "had too many wines" and was talking too much, a party features several men and women holding glasses of wine and one man drinks from his glass, a dinner with three couples features men and women holding glasses of wine and bottles of beer where one man drinks from his bottle, a bottle of wine and two bottles of clear liquor are shown on a sideboard at a gathering and one man pours a glass of wine for the other man (he does not drink it), men and women toast with glasses of wine and bottled beer, a baby shower scene shows two bottles of champagne in an ice bucket and some fresh wine glasses as a husband tells his wife (who does not drink) not to drink too much, and a man drinks a glass of whiskey in a dark bar as men and women sit around the bar and tables with beer bottles and glasses of alcohol in front of them (they do not drink).
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Mental illness, obsession, depression, control freaks, bullying, gas lighting, image management, secrets, revenge, relationships, friendship, marriage, miscarriage, loss, grief, danger, power, greed, class differences, hypocrisy.
MESSAGE - Be mindful of what you do as a teen because you may hurt someone irrevocably.
CAVEATS
Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.
We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.
Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.
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We welcome suggestions & criticisms -- and we will accept compliments too. While we read all emails & try to reply we do not always manage to do so; be assured that we will not share your e-mail address.