| The Gift, about the psychic powers of Annie Wilson (played by Kate Blanchett), is set in the Georgia bayou town of Brixton near Savannah. Annie, a fortuneteller who accepts “donations,” is the confessor of nearly everyone’s problems, though the problems are caused by those in town who do not consult her. Annie proves that she possesses unusual powers during the film when she experiences a visit from her dead grandmother, solves a murder, and her life is saved by a dead person. She is consulted by Valerie Barksdale (played by Hillary Swank), whose husband Donnie (played by Keanu Reeves) has a habit of beating her. Another client is auto mechanic Buddy Cole (played by Giovanni Ribisi), who believes that he has been mistreated by his father, whom he kills in a rage at one point, whereupon he is sent to a mental institution; he subsequently hangs himself. But the main client in the film is Sheriff Pearl Johnson (played by J. K. Simmons), who disbelieves in Annie’s powers but follows her leads regarding a murder of Jessica King (played by Katie Holmes), who was slated to marry school principal Wayne Collins (played by Greg Kinnear). Jessica is the daughter of the town’s richest family, but she has asserted her independence by sleeping with quite a few guys, including District Attorney David Duncan (played by Gary Cole). Annie leads the sheriff to the lake on Donnie’s property where Jessica’s dead body is found. The obvious suspect in the murder appears to be Donnie, and he is convicted on circumstantial evidence. But Annie still sees visions of Jessica, concludes that Donnie was not the murderer, and confides her suspicion in certain quarters around town. The murderer then asks to have a reading in order to find out whether he is a suspect in Annie’s visions; when no clear image of the murder appears, he drives Annie to the lake where the body was found, and Annie sees a reenactment of the murder. When Annie realizes that she can now report the vision to the authorities, he tries to kill her, whereupon dead Jessica appears to save her. Directed by Sam Raimi, the Faulknerian characterizations depict Southerners as deranged, rednecks, sex maniacs, and the like. The courtroom scenes show that Southern justice is shoddy: Donnie is convicted on very little evidence, and hearsay testimony goes unchallenged, so this The Sixth Sense (1999), Georgia style, will not play well in the South. MH |