Gifted is the latest film from (500) Days of Summer and Amazing Spider-Man director Marc Webb.
The film tells the story of young Mary, a 7-year old with immense intelligence,
who is being raised by her uncle after her mother’s death. After starting first
grade at a local school, the administration asks the uncle to transfer her to a
school for gifted children which he declines to do and then becomes embroiled
in a custody battle with Mary’s grandmother who believes that she has the child’s
best interests in mind. The film stars Chris Evans, Jenny Slate, Octavia
Spencer, Mckenna Grace, and Lindsay Duncan.
Overall
I was struck by how charming and heartwarming this film was. I think it really succeeded
in getting me invested in its story, caring about the characters, and feeling
something about the underlying situation. I did feel that this film was very
cheaply made with some horrendously bad camera work and a script with several
plot conveniences that felt a bit overboard.
What
I loved about Gifted was the emotions
the film made me feel. It is extremely funny at times, extremely heartwarming
at times, and even extremely sad at times. The film managed to move me from
laughter to tears. It took a few moments to sell me but the sheer charm that
exuded from the films lead characters made me connect with it on such a level
that I was in the palm of its hand as it led be down an emotional journey.
Chris
Evans, Jenny Slate, Mckenna Grace, and Octavia Spencer all absolutely shine in
this film in their own individual ways. None of them play the same character
and they all have unique motivations. Yet, the play together as a unit so well
that they get you to invest extremely effectively. I think that the certain
energy brought by the various performers really paid off to the film’s distinct
benefit. I also thought that Lindsay Duncan brought a totally different energy
to her role which also worked perfectly and made the movie a really interesting
struggle and drama.
I
also appreciated that the film gave me heart, cheer, and laughter without being
reductive. It was so refreshing that this movie set up a situation that, on its
surface, is very black and white, but that is genuinely layered and grey when
you scratch beneath it. So many questions were raised in my mind by this film
and I found myself, at a point, struggling with what the “right” thing to do
was in reality (even though the narrative answer remained clear). By playing on
different parts of my mind, Gifted
managed to dig its heels in like most films in its genre fail to do.
Though
I genuinely think Gifted did so many
things well, I also thought it had distinct weaknesses. For starters (and most
frustratingly) the camera work was poor. The focus felt really weird throughout
the film and I was extremely underwhelmed by how the Floridian and Boston
environments were captured in the movie. There are also a couple scenes (one in
particular) where the camera is bouncing around during a very simple dialogue
scene as if some child was running around with their parent’s home video
camera. Professionals shot this thing and I just cannot bring myself to forgive
them for this incredibly distracting moment, or for the frankly
incomprehensible issues with the cinematography as a whole. Thankfully the film
leans on that element so little it caused minimal damage to the final product,
but it was still frustrating in the moments where it did raise its ugly head.
On
top of those issues, I also thought there were moments of cliché in the film
and there were several plot devices that felt over convenient. All films have
these but there were just a couple that were particularly pronounced in what
was generally a quite refreshing film that they stood out. One at the end
really drove the narrative in a way that shocked me a bit and though effective,
left me feeling underwhelmed several hours later.
Overall,
I think Gifted is a wonderfully
heartwarming and charming film that absolutely impacted me emotionally. It
introduced relatable and interesting characters and really made you care which
is what is most critical for a human drama like this one. Definitely a film
that people should go and see!
Ryan’s
Score: 8/10
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