A moody but minor thriller reliant on jump scares to increase tension, The Gift is nonetheless a respectable debut for actor turned writer-director Joel Edgerton. The rookie helmer's leads also turn in strong performances, with Jason Bateman in full arrogant-guy mode and Rebecca Hall as his persistently curious wife. The story focuses almost entirely on this trio's stormy interactions spurred by the reappearance of Edgerton's overattentive loner, Gordo, decades after graduating high school with Bateman's character.

While individual scenes are unnerving in their voyeuristic camera angles or awkward tonal shifts, the movie doesn't fully gel, thus reducing some of the intended heft of the open-ended twist finale. The stakes never feel high enough to warrant commitment to the skewed morality at the film's core, so any opportunity to deliver a truly disturbing thriller is missed by a fair margin.

Instead, Edgerton offers a well-mounted first attempt behind the camera, and a complex anti-heroic portrayal of a justifiably vengeful person. The Gift doesn't do much new, clinging to psycho-stalker genre tropes like murdered pets, hidden recording devices and even toy masks. However, it hints at a promising storyteller yet establishing his style, and does so with a few welcome surprises.

Final Grade: B- | 81/100 | ★★½