Frank, a single man raising his child prodigy niece Mary, is drawn into a custody battle with his mother.
Frank Adler (Chris Evans) is a single man raising a child prodigy - his spirited young niece Mary (Mckenna Grace) in a coastal town in Florida. Frank's plans for a normal school life for Mary are foiled when the seven-year-old's mathematical abilities come to the attention of Frank's formidable mother Evelyn (Lindsay Duncan) whose plans for her granddaughter threaten to separate Frank and Mary. Octavia Spencer plays Roberta, Frank and Mary's landlady and best friend. Jenny Slate is Mary's teacher, Bonnie, a young woman whose concern for her student develops into a connection with her uncle as well.—Fox Searchlight Pictures
In a small town near Tampa, Florida, seven-year-old Mary Adler lives with uncle and DE FACTO guardian, Frank. Her best friend is her 40-ish neighbor, Roberta. On her first day of first grade, she shows remarkable mathematical talent, which impresses her teacher, Bonnie Stevenson. There, despite her initial disdain for average children her own age and her boredom with their classwork, she begins to bond with them when she brings her one-eyed cat, Fred, for show-and-tell and later defends a classmate from a bully on the bus. Mary is offered a scholarship to a private school for gifted children. However, Frank turns it down. Based on his family's experiences with similar schools, he fears Mary will not have a chance at a normal childhood.
Single Frank Adler, who works as a freelance boat repairman and lives in a trailer park on the Florida coast, has been guardian to his seven year old niece Mary Adler since she was a newborn after her mother, Frank's sister, Diane Adler, committed suicide. At the time, Frank was a Philosophy professor at Boston University, he moving with Mary in an effort to "escape". Like her mother, Mary is a math prodigy, of which Frank is well aware. Frank has home schooled Mary up until now in an effort to protect her from people like who he was escaping from, his and Diane's own mother, uncompromising (to use Frank's vernacular) Evelyn Adler, who, if she had custody, would have had a singular focus in the math prodigy aspect of Mary, much like she was with Diane. Frank, who has largely treated Mary like an equal in being up front with her about most things, has now decided to send Mary to a regular public school in an effort to socialize her to other children and to make her feel like a normal child, with their neighbor, adult Roberta Taylor, Mary's only real friend besides Frank. Roberta routinely sits with Mary to allow Frank his regular Friday out at the bar for himself. Although Frank cautions Mary about not being too "obvious" at school, Mary's teacher, Bonnie Stevenson, quickly discovers not only Mary's advanced math abilities, but her background being Diane's daughter. Although Miss Stevenson, like Frank, wants what's best holistically for Mary, the process to provide an advanced education to Mary at the expense of all else begins to snowball to the point where Evelyn learns of Frank and Mary's whereabouts. Not agreeing with any of Frank's choices, Evelyn sues for full custody, which brings into light the entire dynamic that existed and exists between Evelyn, Frank and Diane.—Huggo
While living his carefree life as a boat repairman, Frank Adler is raising his seven year old niece Mary by himself in western Florida as her de facto guardian. While understanding her unbelievable mathematical abilities, he hopes she will be able to live a normal life, unlike his late sister and her late mother Diane. Frank enrolls Mary in public school as a first grader, despite her distaste for kids her own age. While there, the teacher learns of Mary's talents and requests that maybe Frank transfer her to a private school on a full ride. Frank declines, but begins seeing the teacher Bonnie outside of school. When Frank's mother Evelyn realizes what is going on, she hopes to move her to Boston and gain custody of her. During the custody battles, stories come to light of the relationship between Evelyn, Frank, and Diane. The case turns personal with no clear resolution in sight.
In St. Petersburg, Florida, seven-year-old Mary Adler (Mckenna Grace), a mathematical genius, lives with her uncle and De Facto guardian, Frank (Chris Evans). Her best friend is her 43-year-old neighbor, Roberta Taylor (Octavia Spencer). Frank, a former philosophy professor now boat mechanic, feels strongly that Mary should attend a normal elementary school so she can have a normal childhood.Frank tells Roberta that Mary needs to have a social life as she has almost no friends her own age.
On her first day of first grade, she shows remarkable mathematical talent, which impresses her teacher, Bonnie Stevenson (Jenny Slate). Bonnie tries to ask Frank about it, but he tries to pass it off as the Trachtenberg system until Bonnie tricks Mary into completing a college math test and confronts Frank again. It emerges that Mary's mother, Diane, had been a promising mathematician, dedicated to the Navier-Stokes problem (one of the 7 unsolved Millennium Prize Problems) before committing suicide when Mary was six months old. Mary has lived with Frank ever since.Frank admits the truth to Bonnie. He says Diane was so socially awkward that she did not know how to differentiate good guys from the bad, and she had sex with Mary's biological father Bradley Pollard (Keir O'Donnell), who left her after a month. Frank says that their dad died when he was 8, and their mother turned her back on Diane when she was pregnant.
Despite Mary's initial disdain for average children her own age and her boredom with their classwork, she begins to bond with them when she brings her one-eyed cat, Fred, for show-and-tell. Later, she defends a classmate Justin (Michael Kendall Kaplan) from a bully on the school bus, something that Frank is not concerned about. After the incident, the principal Mrs. Davis (Elizabeth Marvel), having discovered Mary's math talent, encourages Frank to send Mary to a private school for gifted children, offering the opportunity of a scholarship. However, Frank turns it down, based on his family's experiences with similar schools.Frank argues that Mary needs to live a normal life to become a decent human being and separating her from society is only going to aggravate her loneliness.
The principal contacts Frank's estranged mother and Mary's maternal grandmother, Evelyn (Lindsay Duncan). Evelyn, a former mathematician herself, is of the opinion that people with capabilities such as Mary's have an obligation to use their talents to further help society and therefore feels that Mary should be specially tutored in preparation for a life devoted to mathematics, much as Diane was. But Frank is adamant that his sister would want Mary to be in a normal school and have the childhood she did not have. Evelyn later sues him for full custody.Evelyn says that Frank does not understand the price that one needs to pay for greatness. Frank blames Evelyn for Diane's suicide, but Evelyn retorts that Diane died as she could not solve the Navier-Stokes problem and she was mentally weak. Evelyn threatens to take Frank to court.
The case goes to court. Bonnie reaches out to Frank and says that this is all on Mrs. Davis. They end up having sex. Evelyn gets visitation rights while the court decides the case, and she takes Mary to Boston for 2 days with her. Evelyn takes Mary to meet Seymour Shankland (Jon Sklaroff), the head of MIT's math department.Shankland gives Mary a difficult problem to solve, which she cannot. This annoys Evelyn, but later Mary says that the problem was unsolvable as it was written wrong. Mary returns to Shankland's class and solves the problem by first correcting it.Mary returns to Frank and says that she does not want to live with Evelyn as she is very bossy.
Bradley appoints Evelyn as the legal guardian of Mary.While Evelyn is on the stand in court, it is revealed that not only did Evelyn home-school Diane, she kept her socially isolated, so that she could be completely focused on mathematics. When Diane and her teenage boyfriend ran away to a ski resort, Evelyn filed a lawsuit and threatened to charge him with kidnapping, forcing him to cut ties with Diane. She attempted suicide for the first time shortly after, something Evelyn argues was an isolated incident.Evelyn loses her temper on stand and says that Diane was a gifted person, and every gifted person has a duty to serve humanity and make the world a better place.
When Frank takes the stand, he admits working at a low-paying job without health insurance. Evelyn's lawyer insinuates that Frank gave up his job as professor at Boston University and came to the little town, to work as a freelance boat mechanic, as she wanted to take revenge on Diane. Diane was gifted and he was not, so she got all the attention and Mary was his way of getting revenge. This is why Frank also refused the scholarship offered to Mary by her school.Frank says that Diane wanted Mary to have a normal childhood.His lawyer, worried that the judge will side with Evelyn due to her having a better income, health plan and home, encourages Frank to consider taking a deal orchestrated by Evelyn's lawyer. Mary would be placed in foster care and attend the private school Evelyn wants to have her enrolled in. 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.
Mary is devastated at being placed in foster care and refuses to see Frank when he tries to visit. When Bonnie sees a picture of Fred up for adoption, she alerts Frank. He retrieves the cat from the pound moments before he is about to be put down and learns that Fred was brought in due to allergy issues in the home he was in. Frank realizes that Evelyn, who is allergic to cats, is overseeing Mary's education in the guest house of Mary's foster home.
Frank goes to the foster home and, after reconciling with Mary, reveals to Evelyn that Diane had indeed completed the Navier-Stokes Problem, but left instructions for Frank not to publish the equation until after Evelyn's death, revealing Diane's deep resentment towards her mother.Knowing that it meant everything for her to see Diane solve the problem, Frank offers Evelyn the opportunity to publish Diane's work if she drops her custody case, to which she agrees. Mary is placed back in the custody of Frank, returning to public school and socializing with children her age while taking college-level courses.
