Gifted (2017) [Movie Review]



Dir: Marc Webb
Starring: Chris Evans, McKenna Grace, Lindsay Duncan, Octavia Spencer
Dur: 1 hr 36 mins
Genre: Inspirational, drama
Rating: 9.5/10

One of the best movies I have ever seen. The last time I cried so much was when I watched The Notebook. The film surprised me in its content and presentation. The trailer promised an exciting and fun story but the film delivered quite something else. Not that there wasn’t excitement and fun in fact they were there in abundance but the film brought out so many situations and generated so many different emotions. The actors have delivered a top-notch performance. Credit is due to the director is a special way but also to the whole crew.

The story centres around 7 year old Mary (McKenna Grace) who lives with her uncle, Frank (Chris Evans). She is an intellectually gifted child and her uncle gives up everything to give her a “normal” life. Her mother, a math genius, took her own life when the baby was just a few months old. Thus far the story stays true to the trailer but then comes the twist. Frank is put under pressure by his estranged mother, a math genius in her own right, to give Mary the opportunities she deserves to shine as a prodigy. The tussle between mother and son lead to some heart-wrenching and tearful scenes. McKenna acts brilliantly. She expresses herself so charmingly and convincingly that she makes the whole drama come to life. Chris plays a stolid character and puts on a very different show as compared to his other films. The way I see it, the film deserves full marks for story and acting. Even the sound tracks are apt and soulful.

The story is poignant and uplifting. The drama is tangible and tense. The final result is brilliant and inspiring. I sincerely hope that this film finds a place on the list of “all time greats”.  Get your family together and watch this heart-warming story of a “gifted” child and her challenging world.    

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Great Grand Masti 2 (2016) (Movie Review)

Image
Dir: Indra Kumar Starring: Vivek Oberoi, Riteish Deshmukh, Aftab Shivdasani, Urvashi Rautela Dur: 2 hrs 10 mins Genre: Comedy Rating: 1/10 Comment: The jokes, gestures and costumes are sexually suggestive. An absolute waste of time. “What an opening line”, you might think. But to say otherwise would be an absolute lie. This film is in fact, a great grand waste of time. It’s horrible whichever way you look at it. The story is weak and thrives on cheap thrills and sorry jokes. The actresses are no doubt eye-catching but the rest is all a blur. The comedy is in fact tragedy and the film attempts to play on the basest desires of man. It’s unbelievable that actors like Riteish and Vivek would do such a film. I am not a big fan of bollywood but I still feel bad when I see bollywood making films like these. All of a sudden, I see that sex is being propagated through Indian cinema. The views of sex are changing and filmmakers and actors are not hesitating to take on unconvent
Read more

St. Joseph: A Father after the Father's Heart (Book Review)

Image
  St. Joseph: A Father after the Father’s Heart , Hyderabad: Don Bosco Publishing House, 2021, Rs. 150, pp. 240. The book is a compilation of articles from various authors writing about qualities of St. Joseph. They have used the litany of St. Joseph as an index and have put together articles on each of the invocations. All the contributors are Salesians from different parts of India but there a couple of contributors from abroad as well. The book lends itself to be a souvenir of the Year of St. Joseph that Pope Francis declared. Let me start out by commenting on the quality of production. The paper is of good quality and so is the design and layout. It is neat and has an attractive cover. Coming to the content, it gets rather repetitive but that is understandable considering that there is so little Biblical foundation for an exposition of St. Joseph. The articles often reference Pope Francis’ letter Patris Corde and extensively utilize Pope St. John Paul II’s apostolic exhortatio
Read more

A Day with Don Bosco

                              Don Bosco was declared the Patron of Youth by Pope John Paul II in 1989. He received his mission: to be Father to the young, in a dream at the tender age of nine. He nurtured this call throughout his life and never wasted an opportunity to gather boys and direct them to God. He did not do this as a spiritual director, (at least no at first!) but rather as a friend, a companion and a seminarian. As a young boy, he would attract youngsters with his magic tricks, tightrope skills, games etc and then get them to recite the rosary with him or recount to them the Sunday sermon (which he remembered thanks to his prodigious memory). Already then, he had ingeniously found a way to combine religion and entertainment. His entertainment was necer for entertainment sake but rather a façade or an advertisment for religious instruction. Even as a young priest, boys would long for more than just a wekkly encounter with him. They loved him and found in him a friend w
Read more