Little Man Tate (1991)

That was an excellent one.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

"Little Man Tate" is a heartwarming, at times poignant, story of a precocious and highly intelligent little boy named Fred Tate (Adam Hynn Bird) incapable to develop sane relationships with his entourage, especially kids his age. His best friend is his mother, a twenty-something free-spirited single woman named Dede and played by a young Jodie Foster, he calls her by her name as if that complicity was a way to make up for the lack of real buddies. One of the most eloquent scenes shows a room full of birthday decorations, balloons, cake and candies, but lacking the essential: kids.This might sound like usual material; after all, gifted kids have always been lacking social skills despite their efforts. In a way, maybe these very efforts are the indicators that they have something to compensate, a sort of invisible burden but of socially handicapping effect. Still, the film obviously tries to get beyond these clichés by establishing the real trait of Fred; he's a smart boy with an incredible intuitive quality, so he can make his own diagnosis. His capability to 'understand' even the most obscure and hidden meanings maybe surpasses his ability to juggle with cubic roots and logarithms, so the paradox is that he can tell you what is wrong with him. But like in a math riddle, just because you can tell what the problem is doesn't mean you've got what it takes to solve it.Fred tries his best to have ersatz of contacts with the other kids. The problem is that he's like a collateral victim of his intelligence, he's highly anxious over the future of the world, developing an ulcer from the anxiety, and yet he needs to be constantly challenged, to satisfy the particularities of his gift. Fred needs challenges he obviously can't find in the very world he wants to fit in, and he needs the real world to fulfill a few dreams, there's a sort of complex situation that an outsider will try to solve. The third player is Jane, played by Dianne Wiest, a former gifted child who helps them to find a path through painting, artistic creations, and travels to Orlando, contests and interview. As they say "travels broaden the mind" and that's what she tries to do.There is not much of a plot except a fascinating coming-of-age story revolving around the 'love' triangle between Jane who's obviously fascinated by Fred and is convinced she can help him to find his way and Dede who can't stand the way he's treated like some sort of a circus freak. It's like "Good Will Hunting" with Wiest in the Skarsgard and Foster in the Williams' roles, but with maternal love at stakes. Dede even threatens Jane to kill her if anything wrong happens, and killing isn't a manner of speaking. But it seems like Fred is interested in these experiments, and during his journey, he comes across many interesting encounters, an obnoxious mathemagician kid wearing a black cape and a young adult student who teaches him billiards. But these relationships never last and tend to project the same reality to Fred: he needs a real mother and real friends.Jane doesn't even seem capable to play a mother role, as she was too focused on the intelligence of her children she couldn't reach the intelligence of the heart, and Dede can't reach her son's mind. The story progresses nonetheless through a fascinating path where Fred's insecurities and weaknesses, rather understandable for a child, highlight the more unstable emotions of adults and inevitably lead to a moment of rebellion where Fred is obviously tired of being an object of fascination and prefers to be a subject. Jodie Foster was an appropriate director for she was a gifted child and maybe the character of little Fred was a way to let some repressed feelings steam off and reveal the curse of being below the others.This is a 'little film' by the usual standards, in 1991, Jodie Foster would be more noted for her performance as Clarice Starling in "Silence of the Lambs" but the acting and yes, the directing, provide very interesting characters, so deep and real we actually care for them and wish they can find the strength to overcome these kind of puzzling dilemmas where everyone is both right and wrong. I only wish the resolution was handled in a better way, it seems that the film didn't care for a climax and things seemed to have been fixed by themselves as we couldn't tell what happened between the TV incident and the birthday party that concluded the film.There must have been some off-screen reconciliation or deep discussions but we never get to know them, maybe it was a deliberate choice, an artistic license from Foster, telling us to give this little kid a break and accept that he could finally be a happy little boy. I guess I longed for more complexity but despite that little faux-pas, this is a movie that I enjoyed as a kid, and realized that it still held up very well with my adult mind.

I don't remember much from this movie as I saw it once when I was a little kid with my dad. I did remember that it is about a gifted seven year-old named Fred, whose mother (played by Jodie Foster) tries to bring him up in the real world.As a kid genius, he sees his abilities are more advanced than normal than people in his age group; I thought the scene where a few adults looking over Fred's shoulder at his test during class was pretty funny. This gives the story a little intrigue as you see how he grows up in the real world and how his single mother tries to overcome the odds to raise him. It's not an incredibly fast-paced film but it's a simple and touching story that is fine for the entire family. Grade B-

This story is a realistic account (I admit, I am assuming) of what it must be like to be a child genius, not fitting in with kids your own age nor with older kids. It must really be difficult for all involved.Adam Hanna-Byrd, as "Fred," is the star of the show and plays that young kid. Jodie Foster plays his mother. The kid's a neat little guy and the main adult characters, played by Foster and Dianne Wiest, are interesting, too. The latter plays the head mistress of a school for gifted children. She and Foster clash a lot about how to bring up the child.The only thing that marred this film was the language. There is too much profanity (six usages of the Lord's name in vain, for example) for a "family film" like this. There is no reason for all of it in a thoughtful, kid-themed movie. Anyway, it's still worth a look.It's nice to see Hanna-Byrd, in real life, is living much more of a normal existence, having gone to college and graduating in 2004

This movie is obviously what one would call "labour of love". It's a pleasure to watch. The story shows beautifully what a thousand articles on math prodigies cannot- that even geniuses need love and that no matter how "genius" that child is he is still only a kid. She brings out the subtleties of her character. Fred seems adult-like in a child's world and yet deals with child-like simplicity in an adult's world. Jane is the headmistress of a school for the gifted, who believes that her theories on child-prodigies can bring out Fred's best talents, but forgets that Fred's best is not in his head but in his heart. Working to give her child the best yet fierce-fully protective of Fred is his mother Dede. This movie perfectly capture the heartbreaking events that can happen when a child is given too much attention but no affection. Hats off to Adam Byrd who gives a very nuanced performance. Both Jodie Foster and Nancy show the little personality clashes very well. Jodie foster has done a great job when she shows Dede's reaction and then later Jane's reaction to the fact that Fred has had a nightmare.I hope to be able to see more movies from her.