Gifted

After time away from the (comparatively) lo-fi stylings of his debut (500) Days of Summer – having gotten caught up in the big budget Hollywood machine with the two Amazing Spider-Man films, to which he was never quite suited – Marc Webb returns with something more grounded and real.

Frank (Evans playing a reflective, rugged young man in the Nicholas Sparks mould; damaged, yet soulful) is a single man raising a child prodigy, his young niece Mary – played by the (appropriately) preternaturally talented Mckenna Grace – in a coastal town in Florida. But Frank's plans for a normal school life for Mary are foiled when her mathematical abilities are discovered by Frank's formidable mother Evelyn (Duncan).

Films about child prodigies are far from rare, and Tom Flynn’s script goes over some very familiar ground, but it does so with a lightness of touch, and the big emotional moments land well thanks to some excellent casting, with Evans elevating his Sparksian archetype, and Grace proving to be as precocious a talent as Sunny Pawar in Lion.