Gifted

Dir: Marc Webb

2017

***

Marc Webb’s 2017 drama Gifted is so sickly-sweet it’ll make your jaw hurt but it’s about as likable as it gets. I understand why Webb would want to take a complete change of pace following his Amazing Spider-Man films that received a less than warm reception (even though they really weren’t that bad). However, Gifted is a million miles away from how lovely his 2009 feature debut 500 Days of Summer was. In a small town near Tampa, Florida, seven-year-old Mary Adler (played by Mckenna Grace) lives with uncle and de facto guardian, Frank (Chris Evans). Her best friend is her 40 something neighbor, Roberta (Octavia Spencer). Mary has been home-schooled until this point and Frank decides what she really needs is to learn how to interact with children her age, so sends her to school against her will. On her first day of first grade, she shows remarkable mathematical talent, which impresses her teacher, Bonnie Stevenson (played by Jenny Slate). There, despite her initial disdain for average children her own age and her boredom with their classwork, she begins to bond with them when she brings her one-eyed cat, Fred, for show-and-tell and later defends a classmate from a bully on the bus. Mary is offered a scholarship to a private school for gifted children but Frank turns it down based on his family's experiences with similar schools. He fears Mary will not have a chance at a "normal" childhood. It emerges that Mary's mother, Diane, had been a promising mathematician, dedicated to the Navier–Stokes problem (one of the unsolved Millennium Prize Problems) before taking her own life when Mary was six months old. Mary has lived with Frank, a former college professor turned boat repairman, ever since. Frank's estranged mother and Mary's maternal grandmother, Evelyn (played by Lindsay Duncan), seeks to gain custody of Mary and move her to Massachusetts, believing that Mary is a "one-in-a-billion" mathematical prodigy who should be specially tutored in preparation for a life devoted to mathematics, much as Diane was. However, Frank is adamant that his sister would want Mary to be in a normal public school and have the childhood she didn't have. Worried that the judge will rule against him and he will lose Mary completely, Frank accepts a compromise brokered by his lawyer Greg Cullen that sees Mary placed in foster care and attend the private school where Evelyn wants to have her enrolled. The foster parents live just 25 minutes from Frank's home, Frank will be entitled to scheduled visits, and Mary will be able to decide where she wants to live after her 12th birthday. Mary is devastated at being placed in foster care, and her foster father says she refuses to see Frank. However, when Bonnie sees a picture of Fred up for adoption by chance, she alerts Frank. Frank retrieves the cat from the pound and, learning that Fred was brought in due to allergy issues, realizes that Evelyn - who is allergic to cats is overseeing Mary's education in the guest house of Mary's foster home. He then reveals to Evelyn - who had been a mathematician herself - that Diane had solved the Navier–Stokes problem, but stipulated that the solution was to be withheld until Evelyn's death. Knowing that it meant everything to Evelyn to see Diane solve the problem, Frank offers Evelyn the opportunity to publish Diane's work if she drops her objection to his having custody of Mary. Evelyn reluctantly agrees. The film ends with Mary back in the custody of Frank, living with him, Fred and a load of other cats Frank ended up adopting, returning to public school while taking college-level courses in the mornings. I will always defend the word nice as a description (just like I will always argue that there is absolutely nothing wrong with vanilla) and I can not think of a better word for Webb’s film. Sometimes films don’t have to be amazing or groundbreaking – nice is often exactly what a film should aspire to be. There is absolutely nothing wrong with nice. I take some objection to the fact the film’s villain is British once more and I don’t believe the fostering process in America is as easy as all that either but to look into Gifted in too much detail is to overlook the overall message – which is nice. I also loved Fred the one-eyed cat and look forward to seeing what he does next.