Gifted (2017 film)

Gifted is a 2017 American drama film directed by Marc Webb and written by Tom Flynn. It stars Chris Evans, Mckenna Grace, Lindsay Duncan, Jenny Slate and Octavia Spencer.

The plot follows an intellectually gifted seven-year-old who becomes the subject of a custody battle between her maternal uncle and maternal grandmother.

The film was released on April 7, 2017, by Fox Searchlight Pictures, and grossed $43 million worldwide. At the 23rd Critics' Choice Awards, Mckenna Grace was nominated for Best Young Actor/Actress. The film received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics, who praised the performances of Evans and Grace, but noted its predictability.

Plot
In St. Petersburg, Florida, seven-year-old Mary Adler, a mathematical genius, lives with her uncle and de facto guardian, Frank. Her best friend is her 43-year-old neighbor, Roberta Taylor. Frank, a former philosophy professor now boat mechanic, feels strongly that Mary should attend a normal elementary school so she can have a normal childhood.

On her first day of first grade, Mary shows remarkable mathematical talent, which impresses her teacher, Bonnie Stevenson. She approaches Frank about it but he tries to pass it off as the Trachtenberg system until she tricks Mary into completing a college math test, and confronts him again.

It emerges that Mary's mother, Diane, had been a genius mathematician, dedicated to the Navier–Stokes problem (one of the unsolved Millennium Prize Problems) before committing suicide when Mary was six months old. Mary has lived with Frank ever since.

Despite Mary’s initial disdain for average children her own age and her boredom with their classwork, she begins to bond with them when she brings her one-eyed cat Fred for show-and-tell. Later, she defends a classmate from a bully on the school bus, something that Frank is not concerned about.

After the incident, the principal, having discovered Mary’s math talent, encourages Frank to send Mary to a private school for gifted children, offering the opportunity of a scholarship. However, he turns it down, based on his family's experiences with similar schools.

The principal contacts Frank's estranged mother and Mary's maternal grandmother Evelyn. As a former mathematician herself, she is of the opinion that people with capabilities such as Mary’s have an obligation to use their talents to further help society.

Evelyn therefore feels that Mary should be specially tutored in preparation for a life devoted to mathematics, much as Diane was. However, Frank is adamant that his sister would want Mary to be in a normal school and have the childhood she did not have. So, Evelyn later sues him for full custody.

While Evelyn is on the stand in court, it is revealed that she kept Diane socially isolated, forcing her to be completely focused on mathematics. When Diane and her teenage boyfriend secretly went off to a ski resort, Evelyn threatened to charge him with kidnapping, forcing him to break up with Diane. Her daughter attempted suicide for the first time shortly after, which she argues was an isolated incident.

When Frank takes the stand, he admits working at a low-paying job without health insurance. His lawyer, worried that the judge will side with Evelyn who has a better financial situation, encourages Frank to take a deal offered by Evelyn’s lawyer. Mary would be placed in foster care and attend the private school dictated by Evelyn. The foster parents live 25 minutes from Frank's home, he will be entitled to scheduled visits, and Mary will be able to decide where she wants to live after her 12th birthday.

Devastated at being placed in foster care, Mary seemingly refuses to see Frank when he visits. Later, he learns that Fred was put up for adoption. Realizing that Evelyn, who is allergic to cats, must be overseeing Mary's education in the foster home, Frank goes there and reconciles with Mary.

Frank reveals to Evelyn that Diane had completed the Navier–Stokes Problem, which their mother was obsessed with and pushed her to solve. However, she instructed Frank to publish the equation only after Evelyn’s death, which reveals her deep resentment towards her mother.

Frank offers Evelyn the opportunity to publish Diane's work in exchange for Mary's custody, to which she agrees. He takes Mary home, where she socializes with children her age while taking college-level courses.

Production
In December 2014, Tom Flynn's screenplay was one of the 70 to make that year's Black List. In August 2015, it was announced Chris Evans had been cast in the film, with Marc Webb directing. In September 2015, Mckenna Grace, Octavia Spencer, Lindsay Duncan and Jenny Slate joined the cast, and in November 2015, Julie Ann Emery was also added.

Filming began in October 2015 in Savannah, Georgia, as well as in Tybee Island, Georgia, and finished in November 2015. Specific locations included May Howard Elementary School in Wilmington Island, Georgia and Emory University in Atlanta.

Although the film is set in St. Petersburg, Florida, screenwriter Tom Flynn was unable to convince the producers to film in Florida, because the state was no longer providing financial incentives to movie makers; that made Georgia a more financially viable option.

Mathematician Jordan Ellenberg, who was himself a child prodigy, was a mathematics consultant for the film; Webb contacted him after reading his article in The Wall Street Journal and asked him to share his experiences. Ellenberg also cameos as a professor lecturing on the partition function and Ramanujan's congruences.

Release
The film was scheduled to be released on April 12, 2017, but was pushed up to April 7, 2017.

Box office
Gifted grossed $24.8 million in the United States and Canada, and $18.2 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $43 million against a production budget of $7 million.

The film went wide on Wednesday, April 12, 2017, and in its opening weekend grossed $3.1 million, finishing 6th at the box office. In its second weekend of wide expansion, it added more screens, and made $4.6 million, an increase of 47.5% from the previous week.

Critical response
On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, Gifted has an approval rating of 73% based on 173 reviews, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Gifted isn't quite as bright as its pint-sized protagonist, but a charming cast wrings respectably engaging drama out of a fairly predictable premise." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 60 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

Colin Covert of the Star Tribune gave the film 3/4 stars, saying, "Sure, it's a simple, straightforward film, but sometimes that's all you need as long as its heart is true." On Evans' performance, Owen Gleiberman of Variety said, "Chris Evans, abashed and rumpled, with a grease monkey’s can’t-be-bothered-to-shave beard, gives an engaged performance, exuding a homespun warmth we haven’t seen in the “Captain America” films." Richard Roeper gave the film 4 out of 4 stars and said, "Gifted isn't the best or most sophisticated or most original film of the year so far – but it just might be my favorite."