Review of Gifted (2017) by Dawdlingpoet — 21 Nov 2021

I thought the actress who plays Mary Adler - the main character (McKenna Grace), did a good job. She certainly seemed quite intelligent/inquisitive and assertive. I was pleased to see Octavia Spencer also present in this film, as a neighbour who enjoys having Mary around at times - I'm a big fan of Octavia as an actress in general.

The story was interesting - having seen other films about child prodigies, I empathised with the man, Frank (played by Chris Evans), who has his niece's welfare at heart. I've heard and seen enough stories about child prodigies to know it isn't always in the childs best interests to try to nurture extraordinary knowledge, to put it one way.

I won't say any more so as not to provide spoilers but I did find this to be a somewhat emotive film and thus an engrossing and decent watch overall. There are some moments which some may write off as a bit too sappy, cheesy at worst but in this sort of a film, I'd say their almost mandatory and it wasn't unnecessarily maudline in a ludicrously over the top way as such.

Its a thoughtful film with some good performances and I appreciated it and would recommend it to others, just be aware that there is a fair bit of jerky camerawork, which isn't great but that and the sappy moments aside, this is a really quite solid film with good performances.