Gifted Review

"He's a good person. He wanted me before I was smart."


Gifted was directed by Marc Webb, and stars the likes of Mckenna Grace, Chris Evans, Lindsey Duncan, Jenny Slate and Octavia Spencer. The film follows Frank (Chris Evans), a single young man who is raising his extremely talented niece Mary (Mckenna Grace), but the two are brought into a custody battle by Mary's grandmother Evelyn (Lindsey Duncan), who wins custody? I won't spoil that for you!

Gifted is certainly a film of two half's, there are definitely some really good aspects to this film, but that is not to say that this film is perfect in no way. One of the strongest aspects of the film was certainly the performances of the two main leads of the film. I personally felt that Chris Evans gave a good performance of an uncle trying his best to bring up his niece and try to bring some normality to her life and his performance really kept me as an audience member engaged, and really made me care about Frank (Evans) and Mary Grace). What I was most impressed with about this film was Mckenna Grace's performance as Mary. I can honestly say that she is the stand out star of the film (I really mean that!). Mckenna Grace was extremely believable as this genius mathematician who is literally able to solve any mathematical equation given to her (which is definitely played on in the film), she also brings attitude to the character creating some truly funny comedic sequences, but also has such a great emotional range especially as a child actor and I truly believe she is an actress to watch out for in the years to come. I also thought the films tone was very good, there were some really light moments of comedic sequences and really caring moments between the characters, but when the film needed to get serious it did and did not shy away from the difficult situation that the characters have ended up in.

Whilst the performances where definitely the strongest aspect of the overall film, there were some issues that stopped the film from reaching its full potential. The film had a strong opening but for me everything happened way to fast. Rather than slowing introducing the characters and developing them, we as the audience are thrown straight into Mary's first day at school, whilst this is fresh and as the audience you quickly jump on board with the story and eventually catch up, it just to me seemed a little too much of a jump and could of done with maybe one or two scenes before just setting up this bug event in Mary's life. I also felt that the second act of the film really dragged, in the second act there are lots of key sequences involving key plot points and information about the characters but for me it just seemed way to dragged out, and by the time you get to those scenes you are not as engaged as you were when the film first started (maybe that is just me!). I would also like to point out that there are so many strong themes that are going on throughout this film, that it is hard to keep track of each characters personal issue and at times due to there being so many strong issues some get left behind whilst another takes the limelight, and is then brought back later on in the film, when we have completely forgotten about what was going on with that character. You can certainly say that my main issue with this film is its structure.

Overall there are definitely some great performances in this film and that will certainly be a draw for audience members, but for me the overall structure of the film really let the film down and allows you to lose interest in the situation which you shouldn't be as these characters are really engaging but are let down by the films structure.

Verdict: 3 out 5 stars