The Gift

2015, US/Australia/China, directed by Joel Edgerton

A very solid slice of neo-Hitchcock, with plenty of well-crafted misdirection -- the film cycles through a couple of possible genre options before settling on something quite distinctive. First-time director Edgerton makes interesting use of the space in the film's key location, turning something attractive and transparent into an arena of alarm, even in the daytime, although unlike in Hitchcock I had a hard time establishing exactly the physical contours of the space. There's another Hitchcockian echo in the casting -- finding a different shade in someone like Jason Bateman, in particular.