Little Man Tate

A film about a gifted child. Fred is seven. He reads adult books, plays piano, paints, and can do arithmetic that adults cannot follow. He also has an ulcer and no friends. His mother Dede is a waitress. She left school early, works nights, and understands almost nothing of what her son can do, but she loves him without reservation. A psychologist arrives. Jane runs an institute for gifted children and wants Fred, and she is very good with intellects and very bad with children. From there the film is a tug of war. Summer courses, a university lecture hall, a competition, and a boy pulled between two women who each think they know what he needs. What the narrative is interested in is not intelligence but loneliness: Fred wants to be liked by other children more than he wants to be admired by adults, and neither woman sees this until late. There is a birthday party early on that nobody comes to. It is short and it sets up everything that follows. The scenes at the institute are the sharpest, because the other gifted children are not written as small adults; they are also lonely and also cruel. Dianne Wiest plays Jane and Adam Hann-Byrd plays Fred. Harry Connick Jr. appears as a young man at the university. Jodie Foster directed and also plays Dede. It was her first film as director. Who it is for: anyone who wants a small, warm film about a child and a mother. Who it is not for: anyone looking for drama; the conflict is quiet and resolves gently.