The Gift (2000) is an Important Film to My Fascination With Australians Doing Southern Accents

Here’s one of the highest compliments I can pay an actor: Cate Blanchett is so good that I can never remember where she’s from.

If you’d asked me a week ago, I would’ve paused, stared blankly at the floor, then probably guessed she’s British. Which would’ve been incorrect. Then I would’ve probably shrugged and said “I don’t know, is she American? East Coast, maybe?” But I would’ve been wrong again.

I would’ve eventually guessed Australian, because there are only so many countries on this planet. But I genuinely forget this information because she so wholly immerses herself into her roles, which often includes putting on an illustrious accent of some sort.

One such role and one such accent is The Gift, which is the first time that Sam Raimi directed a film about a woman with psychic powers. It’s one of those films that is “Southern” in the sense that it was both set and shot in Georgia, but it’s also one of those films that is “Southern?” in the sense that most of the people working on it are not Southern, including Raimi.*

Sure, a couple minor players are from the South here, like Kim Dickens (Alabama!) and Michael Jeter (Tennessee!). But most of this (deceptively stacked) cast poured syrup on their voice boxes to really play up that rural drawl. You’ve got Giovanni Ribisi (from Southern California), Katie Holmes (from Ohio), J.K. Simmons (from Michigan then also Ohio), Hillary Swank (from Nebraska then Washington), and Gary Cole (from Illinois). You’ve also got Greg Kinnear (from Indiana) dialing the accent back a bit because he’s playing a school principal, and then you’ve got the mostly Canadian Keanu Reeves doing God knows what with his accent at any point in the film because he is gloriously unhinged and always has been.**

But the star of the show is Cate Blanchett, the woman who possesses the titular gift.*** And she pretty much nails that Southern accent. She doesn’t put too much heat on it, and her restraint shows respect for the dialect, I think.

Now, I’ve long had a fascination with Australian accents doing pitch-perfect Southern accents, like Joel Edgerton and Nicole Kidman and Damon Herriman and Rose Byrne. And I haven’t done any research on why Australians are so good at Southern accents,**** because I think it’s partially just one of those things where the two dialects are quietly similar if you really break it down. But I’ve never thought about how far back this trend goes.

Is Cate Blanchett a trailblazer in The Gift in this respect? Well, probably not.

Just six months before this film was released, The Patriot featured not one but two Aussies (Mel Gibson and Heath Ledger) playing soldiers of the American Revolution from South Carolina. However, I simply do not like that movie and thus I will not be writing about it. Anyway, Mel Gibson himself played an American Southerner before that, as far back as 1984’s The River, which might be the first example of an Australian playing a Southerner in a film.

But I do believe The Gift is the first time Blanchett played Southern, so it feels like a noteworthy thing to spotlight on the timeline of Australians Doing Southern Accents that I would probably research and write myself if somebody paid me to do it.***** And truly, what a gift she and her shapeshifting dialect have been for the American film industry.

*It’s weird to think about now, because he only has one screenplay credit in the past 20 years, but Billy Bob Thornton (the writer of this film) was a hot screenwriter for about a decade there. As you may know, his only Oscar win is for Best Adapted Screenplay for Sling Blade (even though he was adapting himself). I may write a whole piece about Billy Bob Thornton’s short-lived writing prowess one day, but I should note that he is obviously Southern (he’s from Arkansas) but also his mother is a self-proclaimed psychic. They say write what you know!

**This does not make Keanu’s performance bad. The man simply embraces his strengths and ignores his weaknesses, and I admire that about him.

***Speaking of titular gifts (I’m very sorry), before I finally watched it, the only thing I knew about The Gift beyond Sam Raimi’s involvement is that, as memorably noted in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, it was (I believe) the first time Katie Holmes appeared topless in a film. Poor woman thought she was in a prestige picture.

****I do like this brief piece from the Dialect Blog, though.

*****If only my editor, John, had a podcast and/or a newsletter about Southern culture that was funded by a Southern-based media company.

The Gift is available on Amazon Prime, Paramount+, Epix, Sling, and DirecTV, and it’s available to rent elsewhere.