Let’s Talk About the Twist in ‘The Gift’

Joel Edgerton’s startlingly (and refreshingly) effective thriller The Gift is this summer’s big twist movie. But The Gift is more than just a series of spill-your-popcorn jolts: It also adds an intriguing, uncomfortable question to the usual loony-stalker formula. (MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD for those who haven’t seen the film yet. Come back after you have!) Because beyond tracking back the mechanics of Gordo’s intricate trap for Jason Bateman’s smug Simon, I was left weighing a more nagging question long after the lights went up: Who was the real villain here? Revenge mastermind Gordo…or his unrepentant bully?

Yuppies-in-the-crosshairs psychological thrillers used to be a studio staple in the ‘80s and ‘90s (Fatal Attraction, The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, and Pacific Heights, to name just a few). But in these films the moral lines were pretty clear: The stalker was a lunatic, and the stalkee innocent or, at worst, greedy or otherwise morally comprised but redemptively so. In 1987’s cautionary tale on adultery, Fatal Attraction, Michael Douglas’ character kickstarted Glenn Close’s stabby-stabbiness by cheating on his wife with her and then breaking it off. However, he was depicted as a decent guy who was penitent over his terrible mistake, and would stop at nothing to protect his family from Close’s mentally ill Alex. And the film ultimately ends with he and his wife embracing after she shoots a knife-waving Alex: He is forgiven, the family is safe, and all that is left to do is bleach her blood ring out of the tub.

In The Gift, Jason Bateman’s Simon is the one being stalked by a “Weirdo,” a role that would historically default him to — at worst — “flawed hero” status. And yet he’s an enormous, unrepentant jerk. Unlike with Douglas’s Fatal Attraction character, you get the sense that Simon would only protect his family if he thought it was good for his career. If given the choice between his wife and a better 401K and office, it would not be an easy decision.

On the surface, Gordo fits the villain archetype: Chronic liar, fish poisoner, possible dog abductor. (He also looks like he could be Conan O'Brien’s evil brother. That’s not an archetype, per se, but it sure is unnerving!) The end of the film reveals his creepy, intricately-planned revenge plot to drive Simon crazy, which he’d set in motion — well, at least nine months before Simon’s wife Robyn gave birth: That’s a very suburban-Keyser-Soze strategy, also bringing to mind such long-range-planning psychopaths as Kevin Spacey in Se7en and Tim Robbins in Arlington Road. And yet, the punishments meted out by those predecessors only fit the crime in their twisted sense of right and wrong. In The Gift, Gordo might have been thoroughly justified.

Robyn was right when she finally realized that her husband remains a proud bully. This would have been an entirely different movie if Simon had shown any true remorse for, as a teen, setting Gordo on an early track to petty crime and rehab by making up a story about “Weirdo” getting molested by a man in a car. Gordo became an outcast, and his own father was arrested for attempted murder for attacking his son for the crime of allegedly being victimized. Gordo’s life slid downhill, to the point where its apex is a gig as a bow-tied trivia-night host. And Simon feels no responsibility for Gordo’s hobbled life: To a successful salesman who believes that everything good that has happened to him is because “Simon Says” it should happen, Gordo’s life remains terrible because he is on the wrong end of Darwin’s laws, and that’s his own damn fault. Gordo’s weakness still sickens Simon: Sure, Gordo is socially awkward, and a little too prone to “Mr. Bojangles” trivia, but Simon calling him “disgusting and weird” is disproportionately contemptuous. And when Robyn forces him to apologize to Gordo, Simon can not bring himself to say the words with any honesty. In what kind of world, Simon seems to wonder, is he wrong for just pointing out who is, objectively, a lesser being?

Over the years I’ve read many first-person articles by journalists who have gone back and confronted their childhood tormentors: They usually end in similar ways, with the onetime bullies feeling remorse, and possibly revealing that they had only been lashing out because they hated themselves or were having troubles at home. And sometimes the piece would conclude with a cathartic, reassuring reveal that the bully did in fact peak in high school and is now living a thoroughly mediocre existence. And lo, the prophecy promised to all teenage geeks that their best days lay ahead while jocks will hit the downslope as soon as they are handed their high-school diploma is proven true. Yet that’s hardly an ironclad truism: Sometimes handsome jocks are because they have all the power and they love to use it. And after high school, instead of remaining in town, losing their hair, gaining weight and telling badly-aging war stories about stolen kegs at the local gas station, these team captains go on to become captains of industry, and look back on their high school adventures in cruelty as valuable life lessons to be applied to business. That’s Simon: He did have a cruel father (I was an a—hole. My dad was an a—hole to me"), but he feels no remorse about continuing the bloodline of dickishness. He gets a sense of pride when he learns that the teacher he dubbed “Dr. Smellsabit” is still saddled with that nickname, years later. And learning at a young age that he could destroy someone’s life with a lie wasn’t something to regret, it was valuable workshopping for the moment when he could destroy Danny McDonnell, his competitor for the big job he finds himself up for.

It’s sad that Gordo doesn’t start out wanting revenge on Simon, Gordo still just wants his approval. When he starts to get menacing, he writes to Simon, “After all those years, I was willing to let bygones be bygones,” which implies that his revenge plot wasn’t his initial motivation for reintroducing himself. Adolescent school politics are hard to shuck off: They can define your confidence or your neuroses for life, so there was a part of Gordo that probably thought, “Simon has it all figured out. Maybe we can be friends and I can start my life over.” Seeing “Weirdo” on Simon’s fridge jolted him into the realization that he was still nothing to his tormentor — yet he still held out hope that he could convince Simon that he was worthwhile. I don’t think Gordo had fully decided to enact his revenge plot when he invited the couple to his fake house: He set up the recording in the hopes that he would discover that Simon and Robyn would speak well of him in his absence and his scars could yet be healed. But no: Simon walked out on him, told him not to call, and the video surveillance revealed Simon calling him “a creepy little f—er.” And that’s what got Gordo shopping for the perfect knockout drug to pair with Gatorade.

Sure, Gordo’s plan wasn’t the perfect crime: One DNA test would remove all doubt about the baby’s paternity. And if the father indeed proves to be Gordo, he delivered Simon enough video evidence to tie him to a rape. But that’s plot nitpicking, because ultimately Gordo still destroyed the family and career Simon Said would happen. And what really marks the film a success is that its final jolt stayed with me for hours after the film ended, as I pondered Gordo’s plan and wondered: Was it psychotic or just retribution? And why can’t it be both?

What did you think about the twist? Who was the bad guy here, or was it the rare movie that acknowledges the reality that the distinction between good guys and bad guys isn’t as simple as Marvel would have us believe?