Who's in It: Fabrizio Borsani, Teo Gheorghiu, Julika Jenkins, Urs Jucker
The Basics: An unusually gifted Swiss six-year-old boy named Vitus — he's a piano prodigy and has super-hearing along with an IQ too high to measure; plus, he reads encyclopedias for fun — fakes losing his super-intelligence to escape his well-meaning parents' pressure to achieve.
What's the Deal? If you were wondering how a movie could be both heartwarming and somewhat irritating at the same time, then check this one out. It's full of mixed messages, some about being what you want to be, self-possession, other admirable stuff, others about how clearly superior beings should pretty much always get their way. Not that that's always a bad idea — what with great minds historically being resisted and/or persecuted by the bovine middle — but somehow it rankles a little when embodied by a precocious child.
What's Good About It: Because it's a Swiss/German film, it lacks the kind of fakey innocence you see when children are the main characters in lots of American films. Kids over there, it seems, are less indulged. Even the "gifted" and "talented" ones.
Who Should See It: All Gen-X parents who think their kids are candidates for some kind of real-life baby-geniuses program. Those people need some perspective. Of course, it's mostly elderly art-house-matinee audiences who like their subtitles to go down sweetly that this movie will really play to.
Where You've Seen the Grandfather Before: That's Bruno Ganz from Wings of Desire and, more recently, as a completely round-the-bend Hitler in Downfall.