Movie review: Let’s hear it for the ‘Whiz Kids’
The word “emotionality” is not often associated with science, but it emerges front and center in the winning documentary “Whiz Kids,” which follows three high school students as they prepare to compete in the prestigious Intel Talent Science Search, grand prize: $100,000 in college funds. Tom Shepard and co-director Tina DiFeliciantonio take a warmly personal approach to their featured trio, wisely focusing more on these ambitious youngsters’ dreams, goals and family bonds than on the minutiae of their sophisticated science projects.
Though American teenagers reportedly rank 24th in the world in math and science, you’d never know it from the film’s brainy threesome: Long Island’s Ana Cisneros, a first-generation Ecuadorian American studying plant communication; Pakistani-born, Staten Island-raised Harmain Khan, whose paleontological research involves dating ancient crocodile teeth; and Kelydra Welcker, who has devised a way to remove a toxic chemical from her West Virginia hometown’s water supply. Whether they’re seen toiling away in laboratories, hustling at regional science fairs or sweating their future, we’re rooting for these inspiring kids all the way.
But it’s the candid moments of joy and accomplishment — Welcker finding out she’s an Intel contest finalist, Khan learning he’s been accepted to Yale, high school valedictorian Cisneros thanking her devoted parents in her graduation speech — that really make this one soar.
“Whiz Kids.” MPAA rating: Unrated. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes. At Laemmle’s Music Hall, Beverly Hills.
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