BurtonReviews Gifted: Civil War 2

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500 Days of Summer is one of my favourite films of all time, and its director – Marc Webb’s first ever feature film. The films quirky execution and deeply personal and emotional approach is what makes it an engrossing watch. Webb’s talent at bringing out true, unfiltered emotion from his stories is something that he brought over to his turn as the director of the Amazing Spider-Man movies, and no matter how you feel about them, is undoubtedly the best part of those attempted franchise starters. But with Spider-Man out of the (appropriately named) Webb’s hands, Webb is now free to return to his quainter, indie roots. And that’s exactly what he did with a much smaller scale and personal story in Gifted, but can he strike gold twice by returning to his element, or has the studio system forever tainted his vision.



(Video sourced from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpwyNqB2UG8)

 

Gifted stars the uncle niece pair of Chris Evans, Frank Adler, and Mckenna Grace, Mary Adler. After a tragedy that took her mother, Mary has been left with her wise-cracking but broken uncle. When Mary begins school, she is found to be a prodigy, a back talking, no BS prodigy at that. But Frank, wanting Mary to simply have a normal life as a kid instead of some think-tank’s personal talking calculator, wants to keep Mary in normal education, instead of taking her to a school for the academically gifted. Hearing that her grand-daughter is having her potential stifled by her son, Lindsay Duncan, Evelyn, re-appears in her family’s life and takes Frank to court for custody of Mary, wanting her grandchild to have all of her potential realised.

While the story doesn’t sound like the most mind blowing or exciting premise in the world, for every second of this movie I was glued to the screen. And that was because of how emotional this tale is. You care for every single character on screen deeply within the first minute of their introduction. The script for gifted is bursting with personality and the cast feels not like a cast, but like the actual characters. The bond between Frank and Mary feels not only real, but aged. Evans and McKenna’s dynamic feels as if they really have been together for most of their lives and have been through the trials and tribulations that have forced them together into this sad situation. But through all of the sadness you feel the love between the two, which makes the battle for Mary’s custody that much more heart wrenching.

And this sincerity that shines through every single one of the cast’s performances is one of the main reasons for my title for this review: Civil War 2. It’[s not just because Chris Evans is in this movie and he also expertly plays Captain America and it was an easy joke, okay it was abit, but the main reason I chose that title is because much like in Civil War, in this battle of morals and how people should live their lives, you honestly don’t know which side to fall on. Frank wants Mary to just have a normal life and be unburdened by the huge responsibility that comes with being a prodigy, but Mary enjoys the high level math she does, so is it right for her potential to be ignored for a normal life. This question, and many like it, swirled through my mind throughout the whole runtime of the film, and while neither side is completely right, neither side could be called the badguy either. Both just want the best for Mary, and it’s this dilemma, and the emotional weight it comes with, that makes the film so compelling from start to finish.

 

(Image sourced from https://ae.bookmyshow.com/movies/gifted/ET00004099)

Unlike Webb’s first Fox Searchlight movie, 500 Days of Summer, Gifted isn’t constructed of quirky segments and an experimental method of ordering the film. And while Gifted’s directorial style isn’t anything too fancy, Webb’s ability to bring out every morsel of emotion from every single scene in this movie is astonishing. No scene felt boring or pointlessly added. Every scene left me smiling, or almost crying, or falling even deeper in love with the set of characters as we learnt more and more about what makes them tick as the script effortlessly laid out the key pillars of these characters in natural ways that didn’t feel too obvious or expositional.

And as I have said, one of the main reasons the story of this movie is so compelling is the tear jerking performances of the cast. None more than Chris Evans. Taking a break from being perfect boy scout Captain America, here Evans gets to stretch his acting muscles and play a much more dower and beaten down man. But while Frank is clearly still tormented by the guilt of his past, it’s Evans’ inherent charisma that shines through every one of his roles that adds that little bit extra to Frank, and adds the final touch to the character to make him the truly empathisable and loveable lead of the movie. You fell every high, and every low with this character, when he cries, you feel like bawling too, and when he’s happy, you’re grinning right there besides him.

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And right up there with Evans is McKenna Grace as Mary Adler. For such a young actress, she can already out-act a lot of people in the business right now. not only did McKenna feel a lot older in her performance, as a prodigy would being leagues above her contemporaries and being more able to relate to an adult then a kid her own age, but the sheer amount of times she effortlessly grabbed and yanked at my heart strings or the charisma any kid would get from being brought up by Evans also shines through in this performance as you see her deal with being put into a custody battleground or have to talk back to condescending teachers not as their little pupil, but as their intellectual superior.

And she even pulls off Mary’s unbeatable intellect. Hearing a young child spout off about advanced equations could have sounded stupid and way too fake as she simply read what was given to her on the script. But McKenna sounds like she actually knows and completely understands all this stuff I have literally zero clue about. The confidence in which she schools her teachers on complex multiplication, or solves an equation way too long for me to even read, cements not only the believability of the character, but also of the film.

(Image sourced from https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gifted_2017/)

Simply put, everyone in this film was spectacular. From the ‘villian’ of the film grandmother Evelyn who you completely understand and by the end feel for this mother who lost her daughter to now have a second chance with her grand daughter, to the strong willed and loving landlord Roberta Taylor played by Octavia Spencer, who is as much as a part of Mary’s family as any blood-relative is. Webb knows how to get the best out of his cast, and Gifted is the prime example of this talent.

Overall Gifted is incredible. The movie had me laughing, crying, and smiling with joy. The story is morally complex and oozing with emotion, emotion harnessed and heightened by the stellar and personal performances by every member of this cast in this heart warming tale just simply about an uncle and his niece.

Gifted = 9/10

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