Gifted

In this day and age of big-budget, huge visual effect films, we can still sit back and enjoy a small drama about the human condition on a much smaller scale instead of the issue being a global 'gotta save the world' premise. The small film at hand is that of "Gifted", where the issue here is something that we all can relate to, if for no other reason than it involves a problem that brings the issue back to a human scale.

Frank Adler (Chris Evans) is a single man raising a child prodigy--his spirited young niece, Mary (McKenna Grace) in a coastal town in Florida. Frank's plan 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) whose plans for her granddaughter threaten to separate Frank and Mary. As difficult as it is for Frank to think about losing Mary, he has Roberta (Octavia Spencer) who is Frank's landlady and best friend to both Frank and Mary and Bonnie (Jenny Slate), Mary's teacher to help him out. And as Bonnie, who is a young woman whose concern for her student develops into a connection with her uncle, she is still instrumental, along with Roberta to 'be there' for Frank through thick or thin.

Others to round out the cast are John M. Jackson as Judge Edward Nichols, Glenn Plummer as Greg Cullen, Frank's attorney, John Finn as Aubrey Highsmith, Elizabeth Marvel as Gloria Davis, Candace B. Harris as Carly Rosen and Jon Sklaroff as Seymore Shankland.

This was directed with such emotion and pathos by Marc Webb ("500 Days of Summer" '09, "The Amazing Spider-Man" '12, "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" '14) plus TV, shorts and videos. Truly, the mixed media this director has been involved in through the years has only served him well in the helming of this film. It appears that he gravitates toward either big- budget films or low-budgeted independent films, hence his resume. Not many filmmakers make this transition, but this guy handles it with finesse and grace. It was surprisingly well written by Tom Flynn ("Watch It" '93, "Second String" (TV movie) '02). I say surprisingly because with the limited writing experience (feature film or TV), this script was concise, tight and somewhat unpredictable, which one doesn't see in this type of film too often. His experience ranges over a vast amount of time--not sure why; possibly being choosy? Not sure, but for whatever reason, it seems to work for him. Don't get me wrong, there were a couple of slow places in script, but certainly not enough to detract from this story at hand.

It is nice to see something to showcase what Evans can do instead of his usual fare of superheroes he plays all too often. He can play 'smaller' roles--he's played them before, so maybe he can start playing roles like this a bit more. This was a film about love, fear, anger and redemption in which we can learn from on so many levels of our own alives.

Out of 4 Stars: 3.5                                   Rated: PG-13                                      101mins.