Gifted's sweetness can't mask plot, character flaws

Mckenna Grace and Chris Evans in Gifted. Image courtesy Fox Searchlight.

There isn't that much about Gifted worth remembering after its 101 minutes are over. It has a few good enough ideas in there, endearing performances and a couple of moments that can invoke involuntary weeping on occasion. But the final act is bitter, and the additional time to reflect reveals some notable plot holes and a thoroughly unremarkable final product. It's an enjoyable enough movie in the moment, but one that leaves viewers empty at the end.

That isn’t to say Gifted is truly bad. It is admittedly a pretty likable film starring very likable actors putting in tremendously charming performances. There's a great rapport between stars Chris Evans and Mckenna Grace, their performances as a low-key uncle and precocious niece balancing each other and forging a pretty great fictional relationship. The film also has Jenny Slate putting in a remarkably restrained performance as Grace's first-grade teacher, and Octavia Spencer is around to be Octavia Spencer and win over the audience with her pitch-perfect Octavia Spencer-ing. They contribute greatly to the much appreciated genial vibe the movie aims for in its first two acts. Even the drama over what to do with Grace's brilliance builds, director Marc Webb and screenwriter Tom Flynn avoid throwing in over-the-top screaming or additional theatrical moments to keep things grounded. The arrival of Evans' mother (Lindsay Duncan), who shows up to move Grace to Boston for more formal education, doesn’t result in forced drama either. The conversations between her and Evans remain civil enough and sometimes regretful about a broken past.

It's during the first 70-minutes or so that Gifted offers up an interesting philosophical question concerning the cost of genius. Grace's intelligence is at the center of the movie's drama, with Evans' wish for his niece to have a normal life fighting against Duncan's pursuit of her granddaughter's mathematical potential. Both sides make fair points about whether or not genius owes anything to society. A child should be allowed to be a kid, but having a brilliant child go through a regular school day is counterproductive to their needs and their greater potential. The debate itself is interesting and is handled with respect for both arguments and in a generally civil manner.

The problems arise when any additional thought is put into how a situation like this should be handled in real life. Gifted shifts its focus to an either/or proposition, with the girl either attending public school or going to an elite program and evolving into a computer. It takes until the very end of the movie for Webb and Flynn to admit that a third option, challenging the girl with collegiate courses part-time and send her to school to achieve the necessary socialization, both exists and makes the most sense. The belated realization of that course of action makes Evans' character, a former associate professor, look like kind of an idiot or at least a jerk, considering he was willing and eager to offer zero intellectual rigor for his niece. Childhood is designed to be challenging; revoking that aspect of it wholesale is bad parenting, and a point the filmmakers keep largely hushed even as the level of brilliance Grace's character exhibits increases every ten minutes.

Yet the worst characterization is granted to Duncan. Initially portrayed as someone willing to be moderately reasonable and have some compassion for her children is painted at the end as an absolute monster willing to ruin her granddaughter's life and let a beloved orange one-eyed cat die because the cat is an inconvenience. Aside from providing Evans a rare literal save the cat moment, it strips Duncan's character of her humanity and turns her into a cartoon villain nearly ghoulish in her pursuit of intellectual glory. Why the dark turn needed to exist is unclear considering Gifted went out of its way to avoid painting any one character as evil.

It's at this point when the flaws Gifted got away with for so long come to the forefront. The little clichés it used to carry the plot forward become clear, as do the less than stellar ways actresses like Slate and Spencer are utilized, wasting a fair amount of talent in the process. Gifted gets a lot of mileage from the performances by Evans and Grace, along with the presence of the one-eyed cat, but it doesn't do enough to support their efforts and presence. Charm can at least make a movie watchable, but it can't do much more than that without a well-told story and a strong final act.

Review: Three out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 101 minutes

Genre: Drama
 

Ask Away

Target audience: People who are interested in watching geniuses wrestle with their standards.

Take the whole family?: The PG-13 rating seems fair for the minor adult content and, mostly, the lack of interest anyone younger than that would have for it.

Theater or Netflix?: Wait for it to stream.

Does Chris Evans work as an everyman?: He does shine in one of the rare human roles he's gotten. Evans has a low-key charm that works for movies like this, sort of like Kevin Costner but with personality. If he does eventually leave the Marvel Cinematic Universe he hopefully finds a home of sorts in romantic comedies and mild dramas.

Watch this as well?: Director Marc Webb is responsible for one of my favorite romantic comedies from the last decade, (500) Days of Summer, which shares the underlying geniality as Gifted but is a more interesting and innovative movie.