Review of Gifted (2017) by Trevor K — 23 Apr 2018

Gifted is a manipulative film, punched through with several worn tropes for films about young genius. But the nature of its manipulation is sincere. It comes by its emotion gamely, giving no short shrift to its protagonists or those who work against them. Evans and Spencer turn in predictably solid performances, but McKenna Grace as Mary coruscates, every bit as engaging and precocious as a Dakota Fanning or Haley Joel Osment playing similar characters.

The greatest strength of Gifted, however, is not in Miss Grace's performance. It's in its basic premise, one that recalls that of Searching for Bobby Fischer: basic decency is not a result of intelligence. It's not even a result of good breeding. It goes deeper than that. Decency is a result of learned morality, of course, but it is a morality based on observing and living in the world as a citizen of it. Gifted, like Fischer, makes a point of its young geniuses experiencing the world in full, among characters of varied backgrounds, and their intelligence in this capacity acts as a magnifier of their inner good.

Evelyn, played with fiery resolve by Lindsay Duncan, is the mouthpiece for the responsibilities of greatness. The film's answer to her is her son Frank (Evans), who embodies simple, straightforward grace. His message? If the gifted have some responsibility to the world because of their gifts, they better serve it by taking the world on its variegated terms, to learn to be stewards of it rather than lords above it.

This message is a large one, but it is perhaps best exemplified by the smallest of scenes, near the film's end: Mary, riding in Frank's dilapidated pickup, bellows with freewheeling joy the name of her one-eyed cat Fred three or four times. She does so in response to Frank bringing up Descartes, his Discourse on Method, and, of course, his famous declaration: I think, therefore I am.

Mary goes on. "I think about Fred, therefore I am.".

In the context of this film, Mary's own declaration is a great philosophical truth. And given its simple, humble joy, surely it is a wondrous moral truth, too.