FILM | REVIEW
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A star is born: Mckenna Grace is a child actor to watch out for.
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A lovely child performance anchors the satisfying family drama Gifted
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ilm history is packed with precociously living conditions. There’s some potentially adorable children who made a splash, intriguing psychology tangled up in the characfrom Shirley Temple and Jackie Cooper ter, but Flynn’s script seems mostly interested in to Drew Barrymore and Macaulay Culkin, and creating an exaggerated, melodramatic villain. they’ve proven a reliable way to give viewers — as It’s fortunate, then, that Evans is around to the kids say these days — all the feels. But the provide a more earthbound balance. The erstmoppet-based movie is also fraught with peril. while Captain America deserves more credit for What if cute crosses the line into irritating? What the soulfulness of his acting, and Gifted gives him if the story builds so much around dramatic and comedic opportunities the youngster that it’s hard to find to wrestle with Frank’s uncertainGIFTED anything for grown-ups? By making ties. There’s also an easy chemistry Rated PG-13 a young character preternaturally in Frank’s relationship with Mary’s Directed by Marc Webb adult-like, are you avoiding the teacher (Jenny Slate), so it’s a shame Starring Chris Evans, Mckenna work of figuring out how a kid actuwhen Slate all but disappears from Grace, Lindsay Duncan, Jenny ally behaves? the film halfway through. Evans, Slate, Octavia Spencer Gifted, directed by Marc Webb however, continues to provide the (500 Days of Summer, The Amazing steadying influence that keeps Gifted Spider-Man) from a script by Tom Flynn, manages grounded, even as the narrative develops into a to dodge most of the pitfalls, largely by finding predictable courtroom custody battle. the right kid for the job. Mckenna Grace plays The real star here, however, is Grace, who Mary Adler, a 7-year-old math prodigy who has does everything right with a role that’s not an never attended school and has been raised by easy sell. Mary could come off as obnoxiously her uncle Frank (Chris Evans) since her mother un-kid-like, particularly in early scenes where she — also a brilliant mathematician — committed struggles to fit into her new classroom. But Grace suicide when Mary was an infant. brings a radiant no-front-teeth smile and surprisFrank wants to find a way for Mary to be a ingly sharp comedic timing to the performance. normal kid, but she (unsurprisingly) struggles to There’s just as much conviction in her giddy fit in with children her own age when he enrolls reaction to visiting a hospital maternity ward as her in first grade. Then Frank’s mother Evelyn there is in her wrenching despair at the prospect (Lindsay Duncan) appears, meeting her grandof being taken away from Frank. daughter for the first time and insisting that she Flynn’s script isn’t really prepared to dig into get the advanced tutoring to nurture her gifts, the potential life consequences of being singled and it appears that Frank might have to fight out for “specialness,” and Webb’s frequent use of even harder to keep Mary in that “normal” life. jittery, hand-held camerawork aims for a streetIf there’s a major sticking point in Gifted, it’s level grittiness that’s just not there in the mateEvelyn and her role as the film’s primary antagorial. As family drama, on the other hand, Gifted nist. A haughty academic Brit who disdains the delivers a satisfying emotional payoff. That’s all life chosen by Frank — he repairs boat engines thanks to a convincing interplay between Evans in South Florida — she feels like a daytime soap and Grace, who gives the kind of performance opera version of the manipulative doyenne, with that makes you want nothing but the best for her, her acidic asides about Frank’s working-class too.
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APRIL 20, 2017 INLANDER 43