"Gifted" - The Film
Sure its clunky
and even clichéd in places - but having just come from the cinema -
"Gifted" is also a rather lovely and moving little film. It's helped
in no small part by a great script from Tom Flynn, an uncluttered direction
from Marc Webb and most especially - fabulous leads who don't waste a moment of
what they know is a sweetheart of a movie.
Chris Evans
wisely steps out of that clean-cut Captain America persona, peels back the
macho and actually acts. And he's good when he does - hugely likeable - and as
some of the film's early jokes involving teachers at his daughter's school and
ladies at the local bar indicate - in his ah-shucks teeshirt and disheveled
beard - kind of cute eye-candy too.
Evans plays Frank
Adler - a freelance boat-repairer living in a modest Florida home - rearing
what appears at first to be his very precocious seven-year old daughter Mary.
Mary questions everything (Latin in the English language, the validity of
breakfast cereals, just who is this git God) and wants the answers right now
and as a caveat – they should make sense too. But on the first day at school -
Mary's combative nature comes out to a point where she feels 'odd' with the
other kids - something she's dreaded – hence her thinly disguised
defensiveness. And there's something else. It turns out Mary's a whizz at
Maths. In fact not just a human calculator but also a genius - a gifted prodigy
who is down with calculus, advanced algebra and differential equations when the
other innocents are struggling with three plus three.
It doesn’t go
unnoticed. Mary's young and kind-hearted teacher Bonnie Stevenson (a luminous
Jenny Slate) is determined to talk to Dad Frank after class - and of course
beneath the parent-teacher patter - sparks are ignited. They date quietly (not that
Mary doesn’t spot the exit from a bathroom in a towel) and Bonnie learns more.
It turns out that Frank is the brother of Mary's mum Diane Adler - who was also
a troubled Math’s genius who couldn't take the oddity, the fame, and the
pressure to prove a hugely difficult theory most professional Mathematicians
wouldn't go near with a barge pole. Physically and emotionally stifled and
somehow feeling she is a mentally frazzled and unworthy mum – Diane tragically
ended her life at 27 leaving Frank with a niece/daughter to raise (the child’s
real Dad has always been absent from her upbringing and cruelly it turns out
that's just fine by him).
Enter Lindsay
Duncan as Mary's prim-and-proper British Grandmother Evelyn (Diane's Mum) who
lives in a wealthy and just-so residence in Massachusetts – the exact physical
and mental opposite to loose-living Frank. Determined to raise the 7-year old
Mary and unleash her obvious and awesome potential – unfortunately for the
close bond between Frank and Mary - the points Evelyn raises don't just make
sense but may well be the right thing to do for the child - and deep down
Dad-Frank knows this. But Frank just wants Mary to have a normal life (as per
mum's instructions) and even have (God forbid) some fun en route. Aunty has other
ideas and enlists expensive lawyer types to apply some brutal but what she sees
as necessary tough-love. Frank hires the street-savvy but humane Greg Cullen as
his attorney - subtly played by a superb Glenn Plummer. Trouble brews, stews
and boils over...and on it goes...
This is the best
I've ever seen Lindsay Duncan because she's given a script of real meat. Her
reasoning and sparring with Evans is both contained and realistic and her
intellectual moneyed tantrum in a courtroom would cram more ice into an already
stuffed refrigerator. Octavia Spencer adds gravitas too as the ever-present
neighbour Roberta who loves Mary and her one-eyed cat Fred with a passion - but
can't raise her because in the eyes of the law - the child is not her blood.
But the whole movie is stolen by an astonishing performance from 11-year old
McKenna Grace who already has a resume that would make your eyes bleed. She's
vulnerable, funny, smart-assed, childish, wise (the scenes between her and
Evans will reduce most to inner mush) and when it comes to key sequences later
in the movie – this young actress reduced the audience I was with to tears and
audible sobs. She's Saoirse Ronan good and that's really saying something...
Don't get me
wrong. "Gifted" is not a relentless broken-family weepy that taps
your emotions like a lump-hammer for the sake of it (even though it does resort
to obvious filmic tricks in certain places – especially the choices of powerful
and moving songs). But "Gifted" has that rare thing nowadays - a
heart - a calmness even - and it reaffirms the power of family and love with a
gentle grace that washes over you like a warm breeze and sunlight on water. And
for once there's genuine believable chemistry between every single member of
the cast (even the minor parts are beautifully realised and therefore
ultimately believable). I liked it a lot and I suspect millions of other people
will feel exactly the same.
Well done to all
involved with "Gifted" and recommended big time.
Just remember to bring
the face wipes with you to the cinema - and after it’s done - be prepared to
want to hug your children with all the might you can physically muster...
