McKenna Grace is good here as the young "Mary" who is clearly rather gifted with it comes to mathematics. Her teacher "Miss Stevenson" (Jenny Slate) cottons on quite quickly and after an altercation on the school bus, her uncle "Frank" (Chris Evans) with whom she lives after the suicide of her mother (his sister) is being sold the virtues of a new school with a much more focussed agenda. "Frank" think she is better growing up surrounded by ordinary kids but a bit of interference from the disappointed head teacher finds him face to face with "Evelyn" (Lindsay Duncan). She is the grandmother of "Mary" and is determined to wrest control of her future so she can, indeed, attend the new school. What becomes clear here is that "Evelyn" is not an unkindly woman, she just has a messily conflicted agenda which gradually unfolds as the court has to make a tough decision. Evans and Grace have a good chemistry here, and when it's the two by themselves on screen the film works quite well at demonstrating what works well for the pair, but also illustrates just why the basic nature of that existence is fuelling the battle against them. I have to say, I didn't really like the ending. The dynamic between Evans and Duncan's characters was never great, but thanks to an one-eyed cat, the last twenty minutes throws it up in the air completely and leave us with a rather unsatisfactory conclusion that maybe made more sense on the page. On-screen it seemed to rather nullify the whole point of the rest of the genuineness of story. Perhaps it's all just about vicarious success? Or just success at any cost? Anyway, it's still a well produced drama with some lively dialogue at times and Octavia Spencer along now and again to dispense some words of support and wisdom to the increasingly struggling "Frank". Never make a promise you don't know you can keep!
