Directed by Jodie Foster • 1991 • United States
Starring Jodie Foster, Adam Hann-Byrd, Dianne Wiest

Graced with the same intelligence and sensitivity that has defined her acting work, Jodie Foster’s highly assured directorial debut explores, with immense poignancy and humor, a subject near to her own life: the experiences of gifted children navigating a world that often fails to understand them. She stars as Dede Tate, a single mother struggling to provide the intellectual stimulation that her son Fred (Adam Hann-Byrd)—a child prodigy who displays remarkable skills in math, music, and art—seems to need. When Jane Grierson (Dianne Wiest), a child psychologist and herself a former child prodigy, takes Fred under her wing, the boy finds himself caught between a life of the mind and his chance for a “normal” childhood.