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Ratings:
10/10, A+, 5/5 Geek Motivation (Great movie, leaves viewer satisfied)
Gifted is the best movie I have seen this year! It is a movie that I have never seen before, and this originality seems to be fading away. It is a smaller movie that people do not know exists, and I hope this reaches other people. The movie was fun. It almost seems realistic in that I assume somewhere there is a gifted child whose IQ is phenomenally high for his or her age and how people struggle for custody over their child. It may not be action packed but it is somewhat of a tear-jerker. The mother-son relationship of Chris Evans’ and Lindsay Duncan’s characters is sad and more than likely happens to some people. All-in-all it is a cheerful movie and well-coordinated.
Summary
We are introduced to Frank Adler (Chris Evans) who is the guardian/uncle of Mary Adler (Mckenna Grace) and is a free lancer that works on boats in Florida. Mary has an extraordinary IQ for that of a seven-year-old and has an adopted one-eyed cat named Fred. Within the first scene, you know that she is different from a “normal” seven-year-old because of the words and tone she uses. Frank believes that it is time for her to go to a regular school after being home-schooled for sometime, but Mary, like the common high school and college student, does not want to go.
After Frank drops off Mary, we briefly get to know Octavia Spencer‘s character, Roberta Taylor, who is their fun, outgoing, worried neighbor. She knows something bad will happen since Mary is going to your common grade school. She does not want him to lose Mary.
Then Mary’s teacher, Bonnie (Jenny Slate), comes on-screen. She’s a warm, nice teacher who loves her students, except for one. Bonnie is extremely shocked when Mary answers a math problem that Bonnie did not know the answer to without a calculator.
The last main character is Evelyn (Lindsay Duncan) who is Frank Adler’s mother. She wants Mary to use her knowledge and skills and solve her late mother’s problem that she had been trying to solve for many years, the Navier–Stokes Equation. This would have gone down in history if she had solved it. Evelyn decides that having Mary at high leveled school is going to help her finish what her mother could not. Frank wants her to have a childhood. He says that is not what Mary’s mother would have wanted. This feud continues to court.
Spoilers
There are about three court scenes that do not happen one right after the other. The first is getting situated and to introduce the judge and lawyers. The second scene is having Evelyn take the stand and answer questions about her daughter and her teenage [love] life. Finally it is Frank’s turn. Evelyn’s lawyer reveals more background information about Frank. He was arrested for assault and took Mary without legal permission.
He does end up losing custody and has to give Mary to a foster home. She is deeply saddened because Frank “breaks” the promise that he would not let anything bad happen to her. Frank does go to see her, but she does not want to see him so he leaves and goes to work on boats. Frank ends up retaking Mary because he found his sister’s book on the Navier-Stokes Problem. He gave Evelyn two options: 1) her death would mean the book is published or 2) give up on Mary and help defend the book.
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