[yasr_overall_rating]
Frank, a single man raising his child prodigy niece Mary, is drawn into a custody battle with his mother.
At the beginning of “Gifted,” we meet Frank Adler (Chris Evans) and his niece Mary (Mckenna Grace), a seven-year-old math prodigy about to begin her first day of school. Frank has been taking care of Mary since she was six months old, after her mother committed suicide. Frank’s sister was a mathematician who worked her entire adult life on trying to solve one problem, and was denied a normal childhood by her overbearing mother Evelyn (Lindsay Duncan). Frank doesn’t want Mary to go down the same path, so he sends her to public school, but it is not long before Evelyn shows up with the intention of taking Mary away from Frank and putting her in one of those special schools where kids don’t get to be kids, all so that she can reach her full potential.
Marc Webb made a splash with the critically acclaimed sleeper hit “(500) Days of Summer,” and subsequently made a couple of disappointing Spider-Man movies. With “Gifted,” he continues to not live up to the promise he showed with his first film, but he has proved that he’s capable of getting good performances out of his actors in smaller, dialogue-driven scenes (the relationship between Peter and Gwen was far and away the strongest part of his Spider-Man movies). Evans is solid here as Frank, although we already knew how good he is at playing charismatic, morally righteous men. Mckenna Grace is great, making this young genius a very likable, mostly believable character. It’s one of the stronger performances from a child actor recently. Lindsay Duncan gets to cry and deliver a monolog, and she does it well, but the material isn’t engaging enough to match her effort. Jenny Slate and Octavia Spencer are both talented actresses, but they don’t have a whole lot to do here other than provide emotional support for Mary and Frank when needed.
Very little in “Gifted” feels fresh or original. It hits all the beats you would expect in a movie about a wunderkind, or any movie where a precocious child is wiser than their surrogate parent. Some interesting questions are raised about how a child’s life is shaped by the decisions made by the adults around them, adults who have had their own share of experiences and disappointments that cloud their judgment when it comes to trying to do what’s best for their child. But very little of it rings true. The characters often feel like vessels for plot mechanics, their motivations taking precedence over an interesting portrayal of human behavior. There are several courtroom scenes full of forced tension between Frank and Evelyn, and witness testimonies that end in surprising revelations. It all feels very contrived. I’m sure many audience members will get emotional watching this film, but most will be able to see the strings as they are being pulled. It’s exactly the manipulative feel-good movie the trailer makes it look like. Nothing more, nothing less.
Now playing in theaters
