![]() ![]() (Though he’s bang on that “the manufacturers of Legos, they should all be in prison”, which is possibly the first expletive-free response I’ve heard from someone stepping on some in bare feet.) Frank may want to do the right thing but family life is imperfect and so is Frank as a guardian. And everyone is reassuringly human, with human complexities. The drama is well-paced, and it never lingers too long – so though there are court scenes this doesn’t turn into a stuffy courtroom battle. ![]() “You couldn’t even get a white lawyer” she tells him as the case hits the legal system, then later offers to lend him a book called “Fundamentals Of Decision Making”. Neighbour Roberta (Octavia Spencer) is funny and caring – the nearest Mary has to a best friend, she is also a realist who doesn’t rate Frank’s judgement when it comes to the girl. It is with Evelyn that Mary first sees the monument to the 7 Millennium Problems, including Navier-Stokes, and Evelyn plants the seed in her mind that one day Mary’s photo could be above the solved problem – finishing her mother’s work. Bearing gifts that only a 7 year old maths prodigy could love (a MacBook preloaded with mathematical texts) she is convinced that Mary’s rare talent will be wasted living with Frank and going to a normal school, so she sues for custody. Then just as Mary is learning how to be a child, in walks her “very British” grandmother Evelyn (Lindsay Duncan). But Mary’s brilliance has been at the expense of what could be termed appropriate behaviour, and she’s frequently in trouble.įrank works as a boat repairer through the week then on Friday nights heads to a local bar where his charms seem to be noticed by everyone but him: “he’s the quiet, damaged hot guy” says a swooning fellow teacher of Bonnie’s, as she recognises him in school, on one of his many trips to collect Mary after one of her frequent rule infractions. ![]() Mary seems to knows the answer to everything (though sadly not why American schoolchildren have such enormous backpacks), so while her fellow first graders are spending their first few days in school working out 2 + 2, her new teacher Bonnie (a delightfully genuine Jenny Slate) has her doing complex equations. So he sends his niece off on the yellow school bus with the exasperated exhortation to “I don’t know, try being a kid”. Diane was also a maths genius with terrible social skills, and was trying to solve Navier-Stokes, one of the 7 Millennium Prize Problems, when she killed herself.įrank is determined to give Mary, in line with her mother’s wishes, a normal childhood – something she never had. Her uncle Frank (Chris Evans) has brought Mary up in Florida after his sister Diane’s death. Blonde and frankly often quite rude, Mary rather reminded me of myself as a child apart from the fact that I wasn’t gifted at anything. Her closest confidents are their neighbour Roberta (Octavia Spencer) and Fred the one-eyed cat. Mary (Mckenna Grace), just starting school, is a maths genius who likes to discuss the Euro with her dad, but has no friends her own age and no social skills. Everyone fighting for her claims to have 7 year old Mary’s best interests at heart, and they may genuinely think that, but it is not entirely true. ![]() Gifted is ostensibly about a child prodigy, and a court battle over her, but it is as much a story about a little girl who is at least partly expected to solve problems – both mathematical and everyday – for other people. But what I want to know is are these film squiggles real, and if so who writes them? First Hidden Figures, and now Gifted – either Octavia Spencer, who appears in both, is a real-life mathematical genius, or someone, somewhere is supplementing their meagre academic salary as “Movie Maths Monitor”.Īnyway I’m afraid I’m going to go on about Gifted “ad nauseam” as I loved it. Admittedly I was initially slightly put off seeing it as though I love film titles with puns, I hate the trend for making nouns into verbs – but I’m glad I put aside my pedantry, as Gifted is a wonderful film that manages to tread that fine line between sincerity and sentimentality.Ĭlick here for the Gifted 1 minute video review Movie Law dictates that any film about maths geniuses must have at least one scene with hundreds of equations being hurriedly chalked on a giant blackboard. ![]()
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