Welcome to "Saturday Night at the Movies", I'm your host, Glen Holland.

Tonight's film is "Little Man Tate", released by Orion Pictures In 1991.

Jodie Foster directed, and stars as a mother of a seven year old child prodigy, played by Adam Hann-Byrd.

Also in the cast are Dianne Weist, David Hyde Pierce, Debi Mazar, and Harry Connick, Jr., with George Plimpton, and an uncredited cameo by Bob Balaban.

The film begins with the birth and early childhood of Fred Tate, the little man of the title.

He lives in New York City with his single mother, Dede, who works as a cocktail waitress.

She first becomes aware of Fred's superior mental gifts, when he is two years old.

By the time he is seven, Fred has shown advanced abilities in subjects such as reading, mathematics, and engineering, as well as extraordinary gifts in art, and musical performance.

He is also unusually understanding and sensitive, well aware of the burdens of his special gifts.

In spite of this, Fred attends the local elementary school, where his intelligence, and talents are unappreciated by his teacher, and the object of scorn from his classmates.

Still, Dede is determined that he will have a normal life, like any other child.

Jane Grierson, a former child prodigy, has become a psychologist, and director of a school for similarly gifted young people, learns of Fred's abilities, and offers him a place at her residential school.

Dede is skeptical, afraid that Jane will regard Fred as no more than a case study, and not provide him with the nurture, and support Dede knows he needs.

But when a planned birthday party reveals to Dede just how friendless Fred really is, she reconsiders, thinking that Jane's school might provide an opportunity for Fred to be around other children like himself, and possibly make some friends.

A child prodigy in psychological terms, is someone under the age of 10, who shows a level of accomplishment in some field of endeavor that is comparable, to what might be expected of an expert adult.

The term is used more commonly to refer to a young person who is particularly talented in an artistic field, or advanced in an academic subject, such as mathematics.

Child prodigies usually benefit from special educational opportunities that are intended to foster their talents, while at the same time providing emotional, and social support for what are after all, still young children.

Jodie Foster, who directed "Little Man Tate", and stars as Fred's mother, Dede, was herself something of a child prodigy.

Born in 1962, she began reading at the age of three.

She attended the Lycée Français de Los Angeles, a private co-educational prep school that offers bilingual education in English and French.

Foster began appearing in television commercials at age three, and had her first acting job at six, in the television comedy series, "Mayberry R.F.D.".

She ultimately appeared in over 50 television programs, as well as a number of movies, including films for Disney, and a lead role in Allen Parker's 1976 kid's gangster musical, "Bugsy Malone", at the age of 13.

The same year, Foster made the transition to roles in serious adult films, playing a child prostitute in Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver", opposite Robert De Niro.

Foster continued acting in movies like "Foxes" in 1980, and "Hotel New Hampshire" in 1984, while also pursuing a college education.

After graduating Magna Cum Laude from Yale University in 1985, Foster returned to acting full-time.

She garnered acclaim, an "Academy Award" for best actress in 1992 for her role as FBI Cadet Clarice Starling opposite Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter, in "Silence of the Lambs".

When she read the script for "Little Man Tate", Jodie Foster was impressed enough by the story to express an interest in directing, as well as acting in the movie.

At that point, her only experience was directing two short episodes for television.

Originally, "Little Man Tate" was to be directed by veteran director Joe Dante, best known for science fiction, and fantasy television programs, and movies like "The Howling" in 1981, "Gremlins" in 1984, and "Inner Space" in 1987.

But creative differences led to Dante leaving the project early on, and Jodie Foster taking the helm, for her motion picture debut as a director.

Screenwriter Scott Frank first had the idea for "Little Man Tate" in 1981, when he was a student at the Santa Barbara campus of the University of California.

In the wake of the Iran hostage crisis, Frank conceived the idea of an eight year old who was making more sense of the world than Ted Koppel, the ABC newsman, who created the program "Nightline", out of daily late night reports on the progress of the crisis.

Frank was hired as a writer by Paramount Pictures in 1984, and later wrote the screenplay for the noire fantasy, "Dead Again", starring Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Andy Garcia, and Derek Jacobi.

But it would be 10 years, after Frank first had the original idea for the movie, that "Little man Tate" would finally be made.

The film was well received critically and grossed 25 million dollars domestically, on a 10 million dollar budget.

Roger Ebert and the "Chicago Sun Times" saw parallels between the movie, and Jodie Foster's own life.

He wrote as Foster Creates this little man, who sees a lot, and knows a lot, but is only gradually beginning to understand a lot.

We can hear echoes perhaps of a young girl who once found it more interesting to study French, than get her picture in the fan magazines.

David Ansen, writing in "Newsweek", saw the connection as well.

"Little Man Tate", he wrote, about the difficult progress of a seven year old child genius, lends itself to an autobiographical reading, as a metaphor for Foster's own precocious acting career.

But Ansen was dissatisfied with aspect of the film's story.

He said, despite quirky fresh moments in a watchful touching performance from Hann-Byrd, the movie lurches unsteadily from scene to scene, punctuated by odd bursts of irrelevant melodrama, and culminating in a happy ending that is frankly baffling.

Apparently, the boy's mind-heart dilemma has been resolved.

How?

When?

Why?

Foster has neglected to show it.

Philip French, critic for "The Observer", in the United Kingdom, was harsher.

He wrote, Jodie Foster's disappointing directorial debut "Little Man Tate" is a pseudo-problem picture, scripted by Scott Frank, with the same grasp of reality he demonstrated in "Dead Again".

There is some fairness to this critique.

What Scott Frank created with his screenplay for "Little Man Tate" is more of a fairy tale, about what David Ansen called the mind-heart dilemma, than a believable portrait of a remarkable child prodigy.

Seven year old Fred is presented as a genius in reading and math, as well as a pianist at competition level, who also spends his recess time recreating great art masterpieces in chalk, on the playground blacktop.

Yet his first grade teacher, who presides over a class of apparent dullards, is unaware of his gifts.

Psychologist Jane Grierson clearly represents the mind.

She lives in a cold, strictly ordered environment, with little aptitude, or concern for the wellbeing of her young charges, and seems unable to figure out how to live a normal life, or prepare a meal as straightforward as meatloaf.

Fred's mother, Dede represents the heart, providing Fred with the love and nurture he needs, but unsure of how best to accommodate his incredible talents.

The other prodigies at Jane Grierson's school are either totally devoted to their mental exercises, or obnoxious, or both, like mathemagician, Damon Wells.

Even those few characters who offer Fred some sort of friendship, like Damon, or the hipster college student, Eddie, disappear from his life almost immediately, afterward.

Again and again, Fred is left with only two alternatives, cold, intellectual Jane, or loving maternal Dede.

It's really no contest.

At the end of the movie, we see Fred with a diverse group of friends at his eighth birthday party, and apparently happy, and fulfilled.

But how that happened is a mystery.

Instead, it's the happily ever after, that is the inevitable conclusion to a fairytale.

But that may be because the center of the film isn't really Fred.

It's his mother, Dede.

She's presented as an irrepressible free spirit, a sort of down market Holly Golightly, whose miraculous son is a product of an immaculate conception, an emotional anchor in her otherwise directionless life.

Jodie Foster and the remarkable young Adam Hann-Byrd give "Little Man Tate" most of its emotional heft, and almost all of its reality.

If the movie is mostly a fairy tale, its conclusion, and its moral is the same one that all fairy tales share.

True love conquers all.

Please join us again next time for another "Saturday Night at The Movies".

I'm Glenn Holland.

Good night.