Menashe (2017)

Menashe (2017)

Shmegegge Schlemiel as Mensch

"And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh, For God, said he, hath made me forget all my toil and all my father’s house." 

-Genesis 41, 51

Gitl: Goodbye. Go in good health.

Bernstein: Goodbye to the boy.

Gitl: May you have a boy of your own one day.

Bernstein: From your mouth to God’s ear. To have a son, a man must have a wife.

Gitl: A wife you can get.

Bernstein: To whom would that I ask? What if she would say no?

Gitl: What if she would say yes? 

- from the film “Hester Street”

American film audiences are unlikely to ever see a dramatic feature film spoken in yiddish, the lingua franca of Jews in pre-war Europe. Over four decades ago “Hester Street”, the story of an immigrant couple on the lower east side of Manhattan, took critics by storm. It was a fascinating glimpse of domestic turmoil brought on by the tension between the mores of the shtetl (village) and the unconstrained ways of the new world. “Menashe” is another story of family strife told in Yiddish with similar themes. “Hester Street” asked what it means to be a good spouse. “Menashe” adds a layer of fatherhood to that query. Imagine the great-great-grandchildren of the first wave of the lower east side refugees facing the stress of adhering to tradition. Unlike their forebears, this generation’s struggle is internecine. It is not a question of being seduced by the new, but managing the old. 

The plot lies around the conundrum of single parent families being verboten in Hasidic Jewish society. Menashe is the widower father of a tween boy. The story follows the power struggle between the son’s successful real estate agent uncle and the proud father, who works as a stock clerk in the local food store. Menashe refuses to remarry which jeopardizes his right to be the guardian of his child. His is warned the son will be taken out of the yeshiva (religious elementary school). This would separate they boy from the community and mark them both as outcasts.  The strength of the film lies in the intimate portrait of a way of life that rebels against the relentless fads and cults of celebrity that dominate American culture. “Menashe" can be seen as a safe harbor from mainstream commercial entertainment offerings, such as the wildly successful “Game of Thrones”. This sci-fi fantasy has just completed it’s breakthrough 7th season with 12 million viewers. One could not imagine a starker contrast. “Menashe” is a low budget feature whose distribution is relegated to art-house movie theaters and cable TV. It features a troubled, frumpy Hasid who lives in cramped, dreary tenement enduring life’s contumely. This is a galaxy far, far away from the flashy, sexy, triumphant heroism of waring kingdoms in a landscape of dragons. Ironically “Menashe’s” simple, primitive ‘slice of life’, holds it’s own in it’s portrayal of another world.  

The origins of the film are similar to Robert Duvall’s paean to Roma society, “Angelo My Love” which was inspired by a chance encounter with a precocious child from that community. The eponymous “Menashe" was born of the lead actor, Menashe Lustig’s own experience of marital discord while living as a Hasid. The director, Joshua Z. Weinstein, adopted a neorealist approach to portraying Borough Park Brooklyn through Lustig’s connections. Many of the cast are people from the neighbor. Mr. Lustig is a professional performer, as is Ruben Niborski, who portrays his son. Their expertise helps guide the amateur co-stars, who rise to the occasion. The film has rough patches. There are awkward pauses and misplayed plot twists, but the authenticity overcomes the odd unfolding of the story. 

The portrayal of Menashe at work is a metaphor for the meandering journey. The essence of his powerlessness, he is a debt ridden grocery clerk, is captured within moments of him kibitzing with his customers. Yet the scene goes on for many minutes…. but….. this isn’t a typical bodega or Korean deli. The young woman is shopping with her 6 (or 7) children… the men, including Maneshe, have strange haircuts, and bizarre clothes. Meashe’s argument with his boss about the lettuce has undertones. The ‘cleanliness' of the vegetables is more than a matter of dirt.  Everything is the same but, very different. The inner city background is recognizable, yet it is inhabited by the unfamiliar. Single parents in most American cities might turn to the internet for dating choices. Manashe’s friends turn to an actual “matchmaker”, a designated person in the community. That persons job’s sole consideration is appropriateness in light of building a family. Period. Love and passion take a backseat to upholding tradition. Life revolves around reading the Torah and following the law as interpreted by the rebbi. Quotes from scripture (Gemara) guide life. When pushing back against the idea of a new wife he is given the aphorism: “a man needs three things - a nice wife, a nice home and nice dishes”. Bowing to pressure Menashe meets a perspective date. This widow, with children, quizzes him on which rebbi he follows? She also states she would NEVER condone a religious leader who sanctioned female automobile drivers.  If that seems foreign consider Menashe's trip to the portrait gallery. Despite his penury, he MUST have an oil painting of a former religious figure for his wife’s one year memorial dinner. The 10 year old son weighs in on which image would be most appropriate.  This film is more than merely a touching family drama. It is an introduction to a world that combines 5,000 year old Middle Eastern tradition, 18th century European fashion and 21st century American economics. 

“Menashe” is a precise examination of the male side the culture. There is strict separation for the sexes, especially on social occasions. Men exclusively gather for a bonfire marking a religious holiday. This moment marks the cinematic highlight of the film, with the smoke, circles and singing. We are witnessing a joyous ritual that pierces the dreary small tenements and rigid way of life. It speaks to a spiritual bond that defies the vacancy of contemporary mainstream culture. The audience has a window into why some men choose to live a life rooted firmly in the past. This fraternity is a part of something ancient and enduring. It is critical to note that this film is about men. The women appear occasionally in the background and their story remains untold. There is one scene in which Menashe asks a neighbor for a recipe for Kugel (casserole) for the memorial. This strong matronly grandmother offers to do the chore herself indicating this is a wife’s job. Menashe refuses and insists on cooking himself. During the discussion they enter the woman’s kitchen. Sitting at a table is a young woman who is in the late stages of pregnancy. She appears completely forlorn in stark contrast to the older woman. One sensed a deep melancholy rooted in the same divide as Menashe’s family struggle. The societal demands cannot be met. Unfortunately both he and the young women know that they must seek solace from people of their own sex. The three of them all stand in the kitchen and pretend that this encounter is simply about seeking a recipe. The loneliness is countered by the fact that, in this community, you are never alone.

The never-ending group gatherings are illustrated in the scene in our hero attends a raucous dinner party. Despite his uncompromising views on re-marriage, he is warmly welcomed in the fold. This sequence also illustrates the film’s shortcoming in presenting a plot driven narrative. Menashe’s son is uncomfortable with his father’s drinking, which culminates in the father accidentally knocking over some china. The loud singing and joyous laughter stops dead as if Menashe pulled the power cable on the party. The son leaves the room to call his father’s nemesis, the uncle, in order to be rescued. On paper, it is believable. Unfortunately, in spite of fine acting by Lustig and Niborski, it is contrived. Ditto for the scene in which Menashe burns the Kugel at his wife’s memorial dinner. In reality this manufactured troupe, designed to highlight Menashe’s incompetence and general bad luck, was unnecessary. In fact it distracted from two central moments within the scene: the son singing in tribute to his mother and the rebbi showing appreciation of his struggle. The elder rebukes the uncle for complaining about the food. This latter gesture might not seem important but in this context of this community the rebbi’s blessing is akin to a nod from above. The director should have realized these moments had enough gravitas WITHOUT the smoke filled apartment. It would have been less opaque, literally, not to be distracted by the needless underlying of Menashe’s shortcomings. This is exhibited again in the sequence where his food delivery falls out of the back of the truck. The action is designed to exhibit the fault, and it shows.  This problem of overemphasis is, once again, exhibited in the dialogue. It only takes one heart to heart with the uncle and the boss to understand their relationships. The repetitive encounters with each were superfluous.  The filmmaker needed more faith in the quieter scenes that show the character’s deficits. Doubling down on exposition, pets dying, fish falling out of the back of trucks weighed down the magic of the small scenes of living life (e.g. praying, working, preparing for bed…) Perhaps an even more atmospheric, less plot driven narrative would have aided in building the bond between father and son. There is an odd feeling of relief in the denouement, rather than tears of separation. 

The critical moment that underpins the saga occurs in a late night drunken encounter with two goyim, non-jews from outside the community. Menashe is invited to join two hispanic stock clerks for an impromptu booze break in the storage area. Our hero is pulling a series of late night shifts and his is alone with his co-workers. They pass the bottle of cheap beer and question the troubled Hasid. The revelation is akin to Laurence Olivier in “Rebecca” spilling the beans on his relationship with his wife. Suddenly all the action is caste in a darker hue. Anger and guilt replace love as the driving force. The beloved father is also a mean-spirited spouse. Alfred Hitchock's film classic is more successful in using the unmasking to build sympathy for the protagonist. Menashe’s truth is, yet another, layer of ambiguity. The uncle’s anger is legitimized. It is the rightful wrath of wronged brother. The guardianship of the child is also put into question. However the mechanics of Menashe’s confession are also problematic. By having the inquiry come from the two co-workers, Menashe becomes reactive. In order to underscore his guilt, Menashe should have initiated the confession. The two outsiders, who have no standing within his community, would have been the perfect audience to unpack his heart. The director missed an opportunity. It is also unfortunate that this is one of the few moments where a full compliment of professional actors might have been more effective. The stock clerks hit their marks but the pivotal scene failed to rise to the occasion. This blemish, however, is merely a mis-step in a fascinating portrait of an over-looked community.

Menashe brings to mind an anti-hero, Igantius J. Reilly, in the classic, “A Confederacy of Dunces”, which tells the tale of a slovenly, intellectual, hot dog vendor in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Igantius gives us a portrait of a very specific, Southern, underclass culture. Menashe opens up the Hassdic Brooklyn enclave. These latter day Don Quixote’s are wonderful foils to highlight universal truths as they do battle with the forces of normalcy. The swashbuckling dragon slayers might draw cheers… but what about the nowhere men? In the opening sequence of “Menashe” we see our anti-hero standing out in the crowd by eschewing the traditional dress and simply wearing his white shirt. The closing of the film shows him in the same streetscape dressed, as all the other men, in a black coat. It is a victory that he alone will savor. Even his few intimate friends and family might see it as simply another quixotic gesture. The audience, however, having born witness to this disjointed journey, will understand that he has come to terms with the death of his wife and the loss of his role as father. It is a strange pyrrhic moment. Hopefully one will see this hapless man, in a strange outfit, in a bizarre neighborhood and think… to quote John Lennon, “Isn’t he a bit like you and me”. You don’t have to be Jewish to know what is kosher. 

Get Out (2017)

Get Out (2017)

The Dark Humor of White Lies

“Ain't no lions or tigers ain't no mamba snake… Just the sweet watermelon and the buckwheat cake… Everybody is as happy as a man can be… climb aboard little one sail away with me”

-Sail Away, song written by Randy Newman, as sung by Ray Charles

“Have you forgotten, that once we were brought here, we were robbed of our names, robbed of our language, we lost our religion, our culture, our God, and many of us by the way we act, even lost our minds!” – Dr. Khalid Muhammad on Public Enemy’s ‘Night Of The Living Base Heads’

“If only we were amongst friends... or sane persons!”

-Janet, The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Jordan Peele of the TV sketch comedy duo, Key and Peele, has made an unlikely directorial debut on the big screen. “Get Out” has many funny moments. This is not surprising given Peele’s body of work. However he chose a genre not usually associated with comedians… horror. The director has an interest in the funny bone, but he is also focused on the smashing of skulls and blood spattering.  “Get Out” borrows from breakthrough films that expand conventional genre boundaries. “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers” can be seen as a parable of the 1950s McCarthyism. In 1975 “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” used standard horror film troupes to hilariously expound on sexual “normalcy”. The same year “The Stepford Wives” made monsters of the misogynist post war ideals of women. “Hannibal” gave a scientific veneer to the slasher flick. Imagine all these threads, and many more, coming together in a “black comedy” about race relations. The key to the films success is that it is a solidly crafted funny horror film, rather than a scold about our social deficits. 

Dave Chapelle just made the most financially successful comedy special ever recorded. He gives homage to Key & Peele for following in his footsteps. He also, casually, makes reference to the hard work of laughter. He told a short joke and mused how it was the best one OF THE 40 he had written on that minuscule topic. Note: this was merely less than a minute of a 4 part, multi-hour show. Yet, despite the substantial length, there was an effortless to every second of his performance. Peele has followed this rigorous attention to craft, albeit without the myopic attention to giggles. “Get Out” casually flows through the terror but with the added dimension of occasional laughter. It is only after reflection one realizes they are witness to an intricately detailed story that has careful exposition with many subtle jibes. Seemingly incidental references and props turn out to be part of a fine-tuned plot. A car collision with a deer on the trip to the parents house is tied to our protagonist’s loss of his own mother. Note: our hero uses mounted deer head as a weapon to slay his adversary.  The Jesse Owen’s mention upon meeting the overly friendly parents is another passing, yet vital, key to understanding the root of the white family’s relationship to African Americans. The father reveals: my grandfather ALMOST recovered from the loss to the great Olympian. The denouement of the story has a member of the nation’s most ridiculed police agency, the TSA, act as the “white” knight in shining armor.  Peele’s commentary on the cold foibles of the ruling class are etched with the knowledge of a keen observer. The writer/director knows that the race is a American is centered around a psychotic relationship.  People, literally, embody those they loath. All this speaks to someone whose mastery of the culture is pitch perfect to the point where racial question are merely a device, rather than the focus. This is a wonderful horror film, rather than a wonderful “black” horror film. 

The cast of  “Get Out” deserves credit for making the magic possible. Daniel Kaluuya and Allison Williams are exquisite in their roles as the lovers in an early stage of romance. Their fears and reactions to the strains of “meeting the family” are believable. The fact that they are an interracial couple meshes perfectly with the nervousness of making the “right” impression. The family has the benevolent upper class quirkiness of being educated elitists with a soft spot for underlings. The neurosurgeon patriarch, Bradley Whitford, has a funnyman/everyman quality akin to a white Dr. Huxtable. The therapist matriarch, Catherine Keener, has the warm friendliness of a den mother constantly apologizing for her overly social husband.  He says the right thing in a manner which makes it the wrong thing. The brother, Caleb Jones,  is the only overt hint that we might be on the sinister set of “Arsenic and Old Lace”, rather than the purely wacky world of “You Can’t Take it With You”. He’s a mean preppy drunk with an overt hatred of minorities. Then there are the servants, Marcus Henderson & Betty Gabriel. Not since Mrs. Danvers, in Hitchcock’s “Rebecca”, have house staff radiated such much pure creepiness. Danver’s is driven to cursing her new mistress before torching the mansion and leaping into the flames but at least she was fighting her own deranged battle. The element that makes Henderson & Gabriel so unsettling is a question of identity.

“Get Out” is about who we aren’t.  Race and class are vehicles for the horror/comic editorial on the state or altered state of America. The rigid caste system that undoubtedly exists is a subject that dare not speaks its name. This is perfect fodder for a dystopian comedy. There is only one character that is solidly lower-middle class. The protagonist’s best friend LilRel Howery, a TSA employee, is rooted in the black working class. He is chock-filled with bromides about race, class and acceptance that our “striving” hero chooses to ignore. Unfortunately Howery is, unintentionally, distanced from his friend’s narrative by a performance that is disjointed from the central narrative. He is playing a stand-up gig at home which is intercut with a carefully mannered parody. Howery is a wonderful as a singular performance. There is a jarring disconnect between his clear-headed, hard-nosed cell phone comedy club routine and the set-piece family nightmare. The audience is swept up in the bizarre twilight-zone antebellum country-club only to be whiplashed with a call from a brash stand up comedian. That sense of disconnect is also illustrated in the blood-soaked latter segment. “Get Out”  metaphorical verbal fisticuffs morph to, literally, breaking out the ax. The mind games turn to actual brain surgery.  Artistically speaking the audience is overcome by the turbulent mechanics of the narrative rather than the helter-skelter nature of the material.

Kaluuya, during the girlfriend family visit, is hit, full bore, with the schizophrenic love/hate of the ruling class toward, ‘the other’. How is he to respond to the family’s loss at the Nazi Olympics? Is the constant praise of African American physicality meant as a compliment? Would they WANT to be black? It is interesting to note that Jesse Owens, reflecting upon his moment revealed: "I wasn't invited up to shake hands with Hitler- but I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either.” The sequence in which our hero is forced into the Hades of submission by Keener’s hypnotic trance, has him seeing things from a bottomless abyss of powerlessness similar to another classic protagonist. Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” ended in basement room filled with bare light bulbs. That hero knew the bitter truth that was revealed in the note he is told never to open as he goes from employer to employer.  He eventually succumbs to curiosity and reads: “Keep This Nigger-Boy Running”. Kaluuya endures a backyard garden party where he encounters another African American fellow traveler who never opened the note. He is a bizarre, castrated, sex slave whose identity has been erased by a white body snatcher. Kaluuya might not know the truth, but he senses something is off. The TSA agent channels the title of the film, “GET OUT!”. It is a hysterical warning of imminent danger, not a sardonic quip of disbelief. Howery, with all his jocular home spun charm, knows the DEADLY seriousness of the situation. 

Gazes and gestures tell a thousand stories. The genius of this film is that they are exactly who they aren’t. When Kaluuya tries to strike up a conversation with Henderson he is the middle of splitting wood. There is no telling where the ax will land next, despite the cool politeness of the interaction. Allison Williams is another odd monster who oozes madness beneath the preppy veneer. Her trophy collection of photos of past conquests is akin to Shelly Duvall in the Shinning discovering her husbands novel is one sentence repeated ad infinitum. The demur, polite Allison is actually a big game warden with the terrifying laissez-faire morality of Daisy Buchanan in the Great Gatsby. Daisy committed manslaughter and let her love be murdered rather than face the music. Allison murders with the same disinterest. She is the mirror image of Howery, who is all heart. The TSA hero who, in his ill-fitting uniform covering his Twinkie filled frame, become the metaphorical white knight. He slays the pretty monsters and the Oreo imposters. Then there is Gabriel’s moment with Kaluuya . If the film could be summed up in one facial expression it would be this domestic servants penetrating, tearful, wide-eyed, glare. There is a quixotic, Mona Lisa quality that projects terror and ambiguity. Should she be embraced as an ally, or scorned as another of the monsters? In reality her place in the orchard of strange fruit, she is both the produce and the purveyor.  Even if she had the ability to reveal the truth, Kaluuya’s response would have been an incredulous, “GET OUT!” as in, “you can’t be serious”. Her deadpan response would have been, “while you can”. There is a monster. Not under your bed but directly in front of you. The horror is there… it is question of choosing to see it and responding appropriately.

In our current climate of vastly opposing opinions about the the racial divide it is important to remember that half a century ago interracial marriage was illegal in most of the United States. In the same year those laws were struck down “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” had its debut. The plot centered around a young wealthy caucasian woman’s parents meeting her African American fiancée’s counterparts. The prospect of different colors in the family trees forces an uncomfortable introspections on all sides. Even the white family’s trusted African American servant is against the nuptials as she feels the young man, a doctor, is trying to “get above himself”. Contrast her with the black maid in “Get Out”’. They are both prisoners of their station, but Peele’s servant is a chimera of commentary on race and class. The former is merely a pawn in a set piece drama about the foolishness of bigotry. Early forays into this difficult conversations are important, but they appear stilted in an age where Harper Lee’s “Go Set a Watchman” can be read as a companion to “To Kill a Mockingbird”. The paradigm character of social justice, Atticus Finch, is revealed as a more nuanced person informed by his segregationist surroundings. “Get Out” reeks of such ambiguity. Racism is real but it is fiction to believe in Atticus Finch. It is more appropriate to grimace and embrace at all the unsettling contradictions. Andrew Jackson, overseer of the trail of tears, had his life saved by a Native American. Get out! Muhammad Ali, the embodiment of black power, based his public persona on a white 1950s professional wrestler. Get out! The Senate leader of the modern segregationists had an African American daughter. Get out! The pilgrims kept the decapitated head of a Native American on a pike on the outskirts of their village to ward off unfriendly tribes. Get Out!  Families were known to attend lynching and postcards were made of the events. Get Out! The nice, white, rich, progressive, country club family are, in truth, depraved, murderous slaveholders. Get Out! Atticus Finch won’t save you… you have to wait for the TSA. Get Out! 

“Get Out” is a bloody, belch of uneasy truth. Peele’s gift is that he has shown us that the story of the American original sin lends itself to real tales of horror rather than the safe ghetto of polite conversation.  It is to be enjoyed from the slums of East St. Louis, to the art-houses of New York City, to the drive ins of San Diego, to the streaming feeds of Montana, Hawaii, Mississippi…. let horror ring. We can, as a big family…. squirm at last. We can squirm at last! Thank God Almighty we can squirm at last!   

The Gift (2015)

The Gift (2015)

Not Using His Gift

““You don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.” 

― Richard Branson

Jason Bateman is scary. The established comic actor plays against type in Joel Edgerton’s psychological thriller “The Gift”. There is no nudity, foul language or bloodshed and yet the people at MPAA decided to give it a R (Restricted) rating. Bateman is good at being bad… or to be more precise, creepy. The supporting cast also hits their marks and give this pedestrian genre film more octane than the trailer would suggest. Mr. Edgerton, who wrote the screenplay, also successfully carries one of the leading roles… a down and out veteran with a past that involves the central character. His acting is stronger than his directing which is stronger than his writing. Edgerton can technically be called an auteur but he lacks the most crucial attribute, a personal vision. He is still under the spell of Hitchcock (Strangers on a Train, Psycho, Frenzy ),Roman Polanski (Repulsion) and Adrian Lyne (Fatal Attraction). The end result is a suspenseful 70 minutes, more than half hour of downtime and, most significantly, no afterthoughts. In hindsight this film is professionally bland and forgettable despite the in-theater thrill

“The Gift” possesses hints that Edgerton’s had grander ambitions. The ending seems pat and abrupt as the wronged party successfully gloats in revenge triumph against the bully. This sudden denouement leaves many loose ends that undercut film’s successful early sequences.The story revolves around a upscale couple that relocates to the husband’s childhood hometown. There is an inordinate degree of parsing of the troubling events that led to the move. The wife, a victim of depression/drug addiction, suffered a miscarriage. Given the arc of the plot it appears the careful detailing of this backstory belonged to an earlier manifestation of the script. It certainly would have added a dimension to the film had the credibility of Rebecca Hall been an open question to other’s within the story (Gaslight) or those in the audience (Repulsion). The final rendering, however, spends an inordinate amount of time illustrating her trauma without justification. Edgerton is too precise a filmmaker/writer to simply incorporate a ‘dead end’ storyline. Note: in the first encounter with the couple the nemesis casually stands within ear-shot as the sales clerk confirms an a address. This quick moment was probably missed by a vast majority of casual movie goers but obviously the director is not indifferent to small details. Surprisingly the wife’s dark history and the motivation for the move are incidental to the unfolding events. Would it have mattered had the wife been trouble-free and the couple changed locales due to her husband’s promotion? The portrait Jason Bateman is more troubling as it is incongruous, rather than superfluous. This is clearly a dedicated husband who stood by his partner during difficulty exclusively triggered by HER demons. These actions are in sync with his being former high school leader and all around ‘good guy’. But how does all this jibe with his other behavior? Do popular Student Council Presidents torment underclassmen? Do sociopaths support their troubled spouses without ulterior motives? More importantly is it credible that the wife was oblivious? Perhaps she had ulterior motives regarding her personal safety or financial security. Strangely she is utterly bewildered by all the revelations. Does she really not know? Once again had these themes been plumbed the memory of the final film might last beyond the parking lot of the movie theater. As it is, the audience is saddled with unbelievable characters performing improbable acts. This undercuts the well executed moments of tension. They are merely splashes of brilliance unanchored to a meaningful larger narrative.  

Edgerton has honed his craft and can make an audience squirm in anticipation of something that never happens. Conversely he can make you jump from your seat when events explode with no foundation. This professionalism might be born of his years of working as an actor/writer. Cleary he has tenacious drive . A first time director receiving wide-scale distribution and mainstream financing faces daunting odds. It is unfortunate that the perseverance failed to deliver work that never rose above the glut of half hearted corporate endeavors. Perhaps he was worn down by merely arriving at the gate and surrendered artistic control. He played it safe as he delivered a more than watchable feature that has grossed four times the meager budget. Great for his career, not so for an audience member.  There is a worn dreariness to the production. The sparseness was palpable.“The Gift” feels small in the manner of a student-film. If a director, due to penury considerations, must limit locations and actors, then compensate with innovation. Certainly he is familiar with Hitchcock’s Rope or Lifeboat.  This material substituted competence for audacity. Despite all the glass, the house felt claustrophobic in a budget conscious way. Maybe the director will feel less artistically inhibited with his next project. Perhaps Mr. Bateman can reprise his bad guy. The confrontation with his high school friend and the “get over it’ soliloquy hints at what might have been. Maybe it is a harbinger of things to come. Edgerton has a gift. “The Gift” only reveals it at the edges.