Vulture
Unfortunately, Gifted's cutesy classroom scenes are not quite up to the task of digging into how Mary fits in with her classmates, and the film quickly gives way to increasingly caricatured depictions...
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Gifted
Chris Evans leads this drama as the uncle of a gifted child he's been left to raise. From the director of 500 Days of Summer, co-starring Jenny Slate (Obvious Child) and Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer (The Help).
Frank Adler (Evans) is a single man raising a child prodigy – his spirited young niece Mary (Mckenna Grace) – in a coastal town in Florida. Frank’s plans for a normal school life for Mary are foiled when the seven-year-old’s mathematical abilities come to the attention of Frank’s formidable mother Evelyn (Lindsay Duncan, Birdman) whose plans for her granddaughter threaten to separate Frank and Mary.
2017Rating: M, Occasional coarse language101 minsUSA
Drama
- Director:
- Marc Webb ('500 Days of Summer', 'The Amazing Spider-Man', 'The Amazing Spider-Man 2')
- Writer:
- Tom Flynn
- Cast:
- Chris EvansMckenna GraceLindsay DuncanJenny SlateOctavia SpencerGlenn PlummerJulie Ann EmeryJoe Chrest
Gifted / Reviews
Variety
The movie is a bit of a crock - a stacked-deck family drama that's all bits and pieces stuck together out of a screenwriter's handbook.
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Time Out
The question at the movie's heart is: What is best for Mary? The answer Gifted chooses is predictable, but that doesn't stop the movie from messing with your tear ducts.
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The New York Times
What's in a child's best interest? It depends on who's answering the question. That's the crux of "Gifted," the director Marc Webb's return to small-scale features after tangling with spidey.
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The Guardian
It disappointingly gets tangled up in plot contrivances, and the real issue of gifted children is just a gooey fantasy.
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Sydney Morning Herald
Not your run-of-the-mill melodrama. More like an exceptional melodrama.
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Los Angeles Times
In attempting to balance the central conflict between Frank and Evelyn, a nature-vs.-nurture clash with a dash of class warfare, the movie comes up disappointingly short.
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Hollywood Reporter
Despite its recycled tropes, the comedy-drama manages to be both funny and moving even if its emotional manipulations are fully apparent.
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Empire Magazine
Warm and heartfelt performances from the two principals are undercut by a formula that too readily reveals the outcome. Interesting workings fail to fully add up. Must do better next term.
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