Their comradery is undeniable and thus there are quite a few powerful scenes. However, as I stated before, the film's heart lies with Evans and Grace. It's an innocent film that tries to be smarter and more thought provoking than it really has a right to be. Funny enough, the film is about a young child who's smarter than she should be at 8-years old, and that's kind of similar to the film overall. It's a predictable story with enough likable qualities to get by, but it could have probably taken a few more chances here and there. The film always has good intentions, as do all of the characters, and in that way it feels safe. Still, someone switching around some lines every now and then would have been nice. As I understand, the screenplay was on one of the Hollywood blacklists, so perhaps he wasn't there on set to tinker with the dialogue as the film was shot. Tom Flynn doesn't have a ton of experience working on feature films, and it shows here. The one detractor being that the dialogue they are given isn't all that effective. Both of them clearly had a blast filming with each other and developed a sweet back and forth. This story only works if these two have great chemistry and you believe in their relationship. Amidst the soap opera-ish story are the touching performances from Chris Evans and Mckenna Grace. Gifted has a keen sense of emotional weight, even if it's ultimately a tad melodramatic with some clunky dialogue.īy far the best thing about 'Gifted' are the performances. Read the whole review at Marc Webb is developing a nice little career for himself. The director and screenwriter, Tom Flynn, are able to prove certain tropes aren't always bad and that doing the opposite isn't always good by delivering all that is predictable and formulaic about Gifted with a warm and wholly wonderful sincerity that comes straight from the heart. Webb is able to tell this recognizable story in ways that allow it to pop.
#Film mary gifted netflix movie#
Sure, many will dismiss Gifted for being the type of film that is emotionally manipulative because it wouldn't be mad if you shed a few tears and/or formulaic in the way that the premise is an old cliché that has been used before (specifically in 1991's Little Man Tate which I haven't seen, but more or less sounds like the same movie), but just because a movie might indeed be full of cliché or admittedly formulaic doesn't mean it's automatically bad. I went into Gifted expecting something along the lines of a sappy, Hallmark-style melodrama with better actors and production design, but within the first fifteen minutes Gifted had convinced me of its validity - it had convinced me of its sincerity that was ingrained in its otherwise competent execution. I was struck by the fact that despite recognizing the predictable tropes utilized in Gifted that I was really, really into the story and that despite the clichés of the courtroom drama Webb's techniques were overcoming them in a way that was delivering a film, a piece of art, that made me feel good that made me appreciate movies for showing me what they can do. In a section titled "The end of Kaelism" Weinman says, "A work of art - serious or popular - isn't supposed to be judged by how much you agree with it, but by how it makes you feel and whether it can convince you of its validity." The context of this quote is key as the writer was discussing the approach of critics such as legendary New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris, the man who invented the auteur theory, as critics who ultimately sported an "art-for-art's-sake approach to culture." I was reminded of this approach, this train of thought, as I sat watching the latest from director Marc Webb ((500) Days of Summer, The Amazing Spider-Man). While the piece is an interesting assertion of how many movies of late have come to be judged as much for their ethics as their art there was one particular section that took me by surprise and stuck with me. I was reading a piece last week by Jaime Weinman for Vox that talked about a shift in film criticism recently and how critics have become more socially conscious than ever.
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