There's some good acting - even some very good acting - but sadly the movie is too much of a stereotypical tearjerker to be really interesting or compelling. The grandmother character, for instance, is a villain to hiss at, rather than a living, breathing person. The grandmother was even provided with her own "kick the dog" moment, so that even the slowest viewers could understand that she was scheming and cold. As soon as I saw her, I thought "yippee - she is going to mistreat or neglect that adorable cat, or she is going to cause another person to do so" ; and indeed, before you could say "cliché" the cat was carted off to a kill shelter. Happily the cat was saved In The Nick Of Time. Cinema, the kingdom of the imagination ! You never know what is going to happen next !
However, it is possible that I am being too critical in this review. There exist people, in real life, who have become caricatures of themselves. Just look around and you'll recognize them - the "tennis father" who forces his daughter to train 24/7, the "ballet mother" who urges her starving child to lose weight, the "beauty queen mother" who drags her unwilling offspring from pageant to pageant. There even exist parents who are so obsessed by the idea of their children becoming models or starlets, that they deliver the said children into the hands of pornographers, blackmailers or perverts. So perhaps the repulsive grandmother isn't all that unrealistic...
But to return to "Gifted" : the movie contains at least one missed opportunity. The characters talk and talk and talk about mathematics, but no effort is made in order to explain the context or stakes. For instance, there is this one fabled mathematical problem, the resolution of which would revolutionize the world of mathematics and physics both. So what does this supreme puzzle entail ? Why is it looked upon as the Holy Grail of mathematics ? The movie does not bother to provide an explanation, which means that your guess is as good as mine.
I was reminded of a French movie I once saw - I've forgotten the name - in which a Famous Movie Director walked around with some kind of camera, but in which you never caught him doing actual work. By the same token the French movie never showed a glimpse of the director's creations or achievements, which were supposed to be stupendously stupendous. Well, one can't have everything...
However, it is possible that I am being too critical in this review. There exist people, in real life, who have become caricatures of themselves. Just look around and you'll recognize them - the "tennis father" who forces his daughter to train 24/7, the "ballet mother" who urges her starving child to lose weight, the "beauty queen mother" who drags her unwilling offspring from pageant to pageant. There even exist parents who are so obsessed by the idea of their children becoming models or starlets, that they deliver the said children into the hands of pornographers, blackmailers or perverts. So perhaps the repulsive grandmother isn't all that unrealistic...
But to return to "Gifted" : the movie contains at least one missed opportunity. The characters talk and talk and talk about mathematics, but no effort is made in order to explain the context or stakes. For instance, there is this one fabled mathematical problem, the resolution of which would revolutionize the world of mathematics and physics both. So what does this supreme puzzle entail ? Why is it looked upon as the Holy Grail of mathematics ? The movie does not bother to provide an explanation, which means that your guess is as good as mine.
I was reminded of a French movie I once saw - I've forgotten the name - in which a Famous Movie Director walked around with some kind of camera, but in which you never caught him doing actual work. By the same token the French movie never showed a glimpse of the director's creations or achievements, which were supposed to be stupendously stupendous. Well, one can't have everything...