A recently widowed woman with three sons is shunned by her rural community because of her psychic abilities. But when the local rich girl goes missing, the only thing she can rely on is her Gift.

Some very good performances here, especially from Ribisi and Kinnear. Reeves is good, too, as a violent townsman. His performance in The Gift has been described as a "groundbreaking role" for him. I don't know if you can have such a thing after acting in major motion pictures for nearly 15 years. But he is good here. Cate Blanchett is well cast in the leading role, her performance is emotional and convincing. Katie Holmes chooses to go topless in this film, while a welcomed feature, it is done in a most gratuitous manner.

The murder mystery angle of the film falls a bit flat, but it works well as a thriller, besides. Co-written by Billy Bob Thorton, the script does seem to run haphazardly at times, but always finds it's way back. What we have here is a decent thriller with some very good performances to elevate the movie as a whole.

Directed by Sam Raimi.