Blu-Ray/Movie Review: Gifted

 

Gifted is a great movie starring Chris Evans (in a role that is the polar opposite of his Marvel action roles) and McKenna Grace, in one of her first major movie roles. Evans stars as Frank Adler, a single guy working on a boat and is the guardian of his seven-year-old niece, Mary (played by Grace), whose mother Diane, who was a math prodigy committed suicide when Mary was six months old. Mary, like her mother, is a math genius who relates more to adults (her best friend is her neighbor played by Octavia Spencer) than she does to kids her own age. Frank wants to put her in public school and give her as normal a life as possible, while his mother, played by Lindsay Duncan, wants to put Mary in a school for gifted kids. The movie is basically an emotional drama that deals with the custody fight between Frank and his mother, Mary trying to cope with being a seven-year-old who is as smart as many 30-year-olds but is still emotionally a kid, and all of them trying to figure out how to have normal relationships with each other and other people. 

The A/V quality of the blu-ray transfer is good, but not outstanding. Of course, there are no big-budget special effects so for all but the die-hard video wonks, the A/V quality is likely going to be perfectly fine. The disc is pretty light on bonus features. The most extensive is a 13-minute HBO first look, and then 8 minutes of deleted scenes. Then there are a series of short promotional featurettes and the trailer. The total running time of the extras is a little over a half hour. While there are not a lot of extras, what is included is good.

Overall, the movie is very good. Grace is most definitely the stand-out, easily able to go from being an immature kid to someone who is more mature than a lot of adults with ease. Evans also does a very good job in a movie that is outside the genre for which he is known, as does Jenny Slate who plays one of Mary's teachers and a love interest for Frank. Grace and Evans have great chemistry together, and Octavia Spencer does a very good job in her relatively small role. It is definitely a movie worth watching if you are looking for a good drama.