Robyn and Simon are happily married but when the reappearance of a high school friend of simon Gordo send their world crashing a horrifying secret widens the gap.
It concludes with one of the most repugnant turns this side of a '60s-era exploitation "roughie," a "twist" so vile it pretty much cancels out the considerable skill and accomplishment of what's preceded it.
The Gift starts out like so many other thrillers before it - with an attractive, well-to-do couple purchasing a big new house - and then beats its own, uniquely tense and twisted path from there.
[The movie] twists an awkward encounter with an old high-school acquaintance into a cracking psychological thriller that offers some genuine surprises.
It's a concept that's more often the basis of arrested development comedies about late bloomers who finally come into their own, but there's nothing funny about how the past looms over the adults that Gordo and Simon have become.