Especially a director who started out making a handcrafted, small-scale bauble like 2009s500 Days of Summer.
But Marc Webb has emerged from his pair of Andrew GarfieldSpider-Manflicks in one piecealive to tell the tale.
Unfortunately, he should have held out for a better tale to tell.
Credit: Wilson Webb/Twentieth Century Fox
It turns out Mary is a genius with numbers and complex theoretical math as well.
Light years ahead of her, too.
Marys principal recommends that she go to a ritzy private school for gifted children.
But Frank doesnt want that life for her.
He saw how it destroyed his sister.
So far, so good.
Or, if not good exactly, then at least not objectionable.
With her clipped, icy British accent, well-tailored clothing, shes as one-dimensional as domestic movie villains get.
Joan Crawford would have had a field day with the role.
As for Duncan, if she had a mustache, shed be twirling it.
In the end, what should be a three-hankie, ugly-cry tearjerker feels unnuanced, overplotted, and mechanical.
Frank and Mary deserved better.C
