GIFTED (2017) FILM REVIEW

* 
12A, 97 Mins

Between cliché and cringe, this tawdry melodrama is too treacly for its own health.

Directed by Marc Webb, this sickly tale of a child prodigy caught in the midst of a traumatizing legal battle is no newcomer to the manipulative world of Hollywood tear-jerking.

Like a cheap crossing point between ‘Good Will Hunting’ (1997) and ‘Kramer vs. Kramer’ (1979), the film centres around the clichéd uncle-niece chemistry of Chris “Captain America” Evan’s hunky lumberjack and “gifted” 12 year old Mary (McKenna Grace).

As with so many Americanized spins on hard-hitting subjects, this young soul’s so-called “giftedness” is never clarified in meaning – suggesting everything about the film-maker’s narrow-minded view of child development.

In the most horrendously hackneyed of manners, young Mary is also disruptive, difficult and down-right “disrespectful”. 

Not only does she scratch, scream and snarl. Unsurprisingly she can also solve every Einsteinian Maths equation on her thumbs!

Thought events couldn’t get more catastrophically contrived? Let’s add that Mary’s grandmother (Lindsay Duncan) is a cynical curmudgeon; hoping to gain legal guardianship of her brilliant granddaughter and is – criminally in this case – “very British”.
Though the film has the naivity to vocally assume British = English!

In fact, the individual who makes such a bland assumption is a kooky teacher (Jenny Slate) dressed in unusually high-waisted skirts and sporting a baby voice to scrape the eardrums!

A strong contender for most teeth-grating professional ever to place nails on a blackboard!

Inevitably Slate’s queen of annoying whimsy ends up awkwardly making out with “Cap America” (no complaining for her!). The downer is us audience being tortured with sitting through what can only be described as snoozefest courtrooms for politically over-correct bozos!

Despite the globules of Maple syrup drooling down our throats, there’s something extremely nauseating about ‘Gifted’s misguided box-tickings. 

Take Octavia Spencer’s miniscule supporting role as a depressing example. Shoe-horned into another patronizing part as a submissive nanny, the film utterly wastes a talented actress. Her near-identical role in ‘The Help’ (2011) seems empowering in comparison!
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I found myself my face physically scrunching in disbelief!

Forgive me for sounding like a pompous snob, but this is the kind of sentimental clap-trap that exists purely to yank the heartstrings of awards voters (most of whose usual soppy schmaltz will be sorely tested and stony-faced!).

More bothersome, however, is how vapidly unaware Director Webb seems of the film’s insufferableness.

What a shame too. Especially given how much I loved his beautifully sincere ‘(500) Days of Summer’ (2009) and delightful indie spin on ‘The Amazing Spiderman’ (2012). Where're Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone when you need em’?!
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