It adds up
Evans raises ‘Gifted’ child in uplifting tale
Avariation on among other things “Heidi,” Fox Searchlight's “Gifted” tells the present-day tale of 7-yearold blond poppet Mary Adler (the talented McKenna Grace), who says in an opening scene that she feels more like a Disney character than a Marvel superhero, a remark that set off my critical Spidey sense. Mary lives with an adult male relative, who allows people to think he is her father, although he is her uncle. She calls him Frank (Boston's Chris Evans aka — aha — Captain America). Frank's sister, Mary's mother, was a brilliant mathematician who came close to solving one of the field's Millennium Problems — the Navier-Stokes equations — before dying by her own hand. Frank, who is in remarkably good shape for a philosopher, works as a Florida boat mechanic and his niece's tutor, although you suspect he has a cape stashed somewhere. He and Mary live in a tiny apartment complex managed by maternal, unmarried neighbor Roberta (superheroic Octavia Spencer of recent hit “Hidden Figures”). When Frank persuades Mary to attend a local school in the hopes she will enjoy being an ordinary kid, Mary's math teacher, Bonnie (an oddly demure Jenny Slate), realizes the girl is a math prodigy. Shortly after, Mary's maternal grandmother, Evelyn (Lindsay Duncan), a mathematician from England originally, flies from Boston and takes her son Frank, Mary's caretaker by his late sister's choice, to court for custody. Evans is so likable that you believe the twists of this story involving what Bonnie's fellow teacher describes as Evans' “damaged hot guy” even if they are not very credible. Slate is winning as a semi-romantic lead, and Spencer brings her trademark authenticity, sincerity and comic edge. Duncan, for her part, makes this film's Cruella de Vil much more than a harridan. But the key is the kid, and Grace is remarkably poised and expressive as the child in the middle of all the adults pulling at her. As a film that proverbially tugs at the heartstrings, “Gifted” works, even if you dislike yourself for falling for it. (“Gifted” contains profanity and a sexually suggestive scene.)