

Mary is devastated at being placed in foster care, and her foster father says she refuses to see Frank. The foster parents live 25 minutes from Frank's home, he will be entitled to scheduled visits, and Mary will be able to decide where she wants to live after her 12th birthday. Worried the judge will rule against him and he will lose Mary completely, Frank accepts a compromise brokered by his lawyer that sees Mary placed in foster care and attend the private school where Evelyn wants to have her enrolled. Evelyn argues that Frank is in no position to be a guardian, working a low-paying job without health insurance. In court, Frank argues that Evelyn's parenting deprived Diane of a normal life Evelyn had sent away a boy Diane was in love with, which was when she first attempted suicide. However, Frank is adamant that his sister would want Mary to be in a normal public school and have the childhood she did not have. Evelyn believes she is a "one-in-a-billion" mathematical prodigy who should be specially tutored in preparation for a life devoted to mathematics, much as Diane was. The principal contacts Frank's estranged mother and Mary's maternal grandmother, Evelyn, who seeks to gain custody of Mary and move her to Massachusetts. She has lived with Frank, a former college professor turned boat repairman, ever since. It emerges that Mary's mother, Diane, had been a promising mathematician, dedicated to the Navier–Stokes problem (one of the unsolved Millennium Prize Problems) before dying by suicide when Mary was six months old. Based on his family's experiences with similar schools, he fears she will not have a chance at a "normal" childhood. After the incident, the principal encourages Frank to send Mary to a private school for gifted children, offering the opportunity of a scholarship. Later, she defends a classmate from a bully on the school bus by hitting the bully in the face.

There, despite her initial disdain for average children her own age and her boredom with their classwork, Mary begins to bond with them when she brings her one-eyed cat, Fred, for show-and-tell. On her first day of first grade, she shows remarkable mathematical talent, which impresses her teacher, Bonnie Stevenson. Her best friend is her 43-year-old neighbor, Roberta Taylor. Petersburg, Florida, seven-year-old Mary Adler lives with her uncle and de facto guardian, Frank. The film received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics, who praised the performances of Evans and Grace, but noted its predictability. At the 23rd Critics' Choice Awards, Mckenna Grace was nominated for Best Young Actor/Actress. The film was released on April 7, 2017, by Fox Searchlight Pictures, and grossed $43 million worldwide. The plot follows an intellectually gifted seven-year-old who becomes the subject of a custody battle between her maternal uncle and maternal grandmother. It stars Chris Evans, Mckenna Grace, Lindsay Duncan, Jenny Slate and Octavia Spencer. Gifted is a 2017 American drama film directed by Marc Webb and written by Tom Flynn.
