Olivie Blake’s Gifted & Talented is not just a story about such people; it is a scalpel-sharp dissection of the systems that commodify genius, the families that weaponize it, and the bodies and minds that crumble under its demands. Released amid cultural reckonings with nepotism and algorithmic control, Gifted & Talented resonates as a cautionary tale. Again, Gifted & Talented is not flawless. Reading Gifted & Talented, I found myself thinking about a conversation I had last year with a friend who works in Silicon Valley. Gifted & Talented is a mirror held up to our collective refusal to confront these truths—a reminder that brilliance, like trauma, is not something we transcend, but something we carry.