Absolutely Brilliant!

A Disappointing Continuation

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

What a touching documentary! It was spellbinding! I saw this about a decade ago on DVD and it was interesting listening to the director's commentary about how he approached the suspenseful ending where he didn't want to focus on the winner alone. Instead he wanted to celebrate the achievements of all.I was shocked to hear about the untimely death of Ted Brigham, one of the contestants featured, in 2007 while doing pre-med studies. I'd like the director to do a remake of the documentary with the current crop of contestants. There's some chatter about the high proportion of Americans of Indian descent comprising the finalists, and for the sake of free speech the documentary can consider this angle, the elephant in the room. The director should consider whether spelling bee competitions are popular in India.

As a tedious patchwork of one-dimensional caricatures, wrapped in an overly twee soundtrack and outstaying its welcome by a good 30 minutes, the only meaningful question this documentary manages to raise is whether this end result was cynically crafted by its director or unintentionally spawned through a desire to create something out of nothing.It bewilders me that this received any kind of nominations at all, at times it felt as though it had descended into daytime telly-like levels of editing, most notably with the interviews with the respective parents.I can only assume this documentary gains some kind of greater resonance in the US where spelling bees are more familiar, however for me here in the UK, it falls very flat.

Hitchcock did not direct this and it does not star Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck. Spellbound (1945) and Spellbound (2002) have in common the fact that they both won Academy Awards and both are spellbinding.Director Jeffrey Blitz's approach to making this most interesting documentary is straight-forward: pick eight contestants. Produce a mini-documentary on each one of them with scenes from family life, school. Interview their teachers, their parents, and some of their friends so that we get to know the contestants. Show the town they live in and the land they grew up on. Cut each mini-documentary to a few minutes and run them one after the other before taking us to the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.Film the spelling bee and show the eight in action along with some of the other 242 or so who made it to the Capitol. Start with round one. Show the officials, the people who read the words to the contestants and answer questions about the words, such as word origin, definition, pronunciation, and root. Show the eager parents. Show the kids on stage with wrinkled brow and sweaty hands--well, you can't show the sweaty hands, although one mother reported that her hands got all wet when her daughter's turn came and then got all dry afterwards. Get some shots of the kids talking. Show the faces with the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat And guess what? The film plays itself. It's a natural. We identify with the contestants, perhaps have our favorite. The tension builds. The hour and a half flies by. The spelling bee is a great spectator sport! Another thing I liked about this was the fact that although the eager parents would put your usual stage moms or little league dads to shame in the way they pushed their kids, when it was over, it was over. A couple of the kids said they were disappointed not to have won, but what a relief it was not to have to study the dictionary anymore! Of course there is always next year, but unlike baseball and the Broadway stage, you can grow too old to compete in the spelling bee--although now that I think about it, I wouldn't be surprised to find that they have adult spelling bees, maybe even spelling bees for senior citizens.Another nice thing is the view Blitz gives us of the Heartland. The film amounts to a glimpse of America the melting pot near the beginning of the 21st Century (the contest is from 1999).Also educational were insights into the way the kids learned to be excellent spellers. They memorized, yes, but they also learned which letters were likely to be correct for certain sounds based on the language of origin of the word. Greek words--there a lot of scientific Greek words in the dictionary--almost always have every letter pronounced (although watch out for those silent leading "m's"!). French words are just the opposite. I used to teach honors English and I can tell you that half the kids could out-spell me. The best kid I had just seemed to do it naturally. I realized however after talking to him that his approach was phonetic to start. That was the default. Every word that could be spelled correctly phonetically he noted and put aside in his mind. (His habit was to notice the spelling of every new word he encountered.) If the word was not spelled phonetically, it was an exception and he noted why it was an exception and dreamed up some mnemonic--silent leading m!--device to remember the exception. I could never spell a word like "lieutenant" (French) until I also developed a mnemonic device. In this case I made a sentence out of the word: "Lie-u-tenant" or I found the little words within: "lie," ... "ten," "ant." Spellbound won the Oscar for Best Documentary in 2002, and it's that good. People and especially young people can identify (or not!) with kids their own age, and they can choose their favorites to root for.(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

Spellbound is obviously a short documentary profiling eight spelling bee contestants from across the United States who vie for the championship title in the 1999 Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee. In watching this movie, I couldn't help but laugh at a lot of the seemingly bizarre comments and lifestyles of the young children and their parents on screen, which to me, made real what Christopher Guest's movies (especially Best in Show) parody. John Waters, too, except that his films are plain fictional narratives rather than mockumentaries. These are also just like mirror images of the characters we laughed at in Napoleon Dynamite. We traverse around the United States, going from Texas to Florida, Pennsylvania to New Jersey, Missouri to California, Washington DC to Connecticut to give a fairly even spread of personalities and backgrounds.The brother of the contestant from Texas went on and on about how his parents immigrated from Mexico hoping for a better life. Scenes, which were interspersed with the ranch owner unfortunately, making dreadful racial remarks about Mexicans, among other things.The family from Missouri just seemed to be fascinated with their seemingly alienated middle child, making the odd comment here and there about how the spelling bee will benefit him, showing off their prized peacock farm, and how the older brother will probably wind up in jail.The mother of the girl from Pennsylvania was ecstatic about her daughter going all the way to compete (and ranking in the top four) in the National Bee, proudly referencing every now and again her inspirational stationary with the words 'Bee Happy' coupled with illustrations of bumble bees. There was the particularly badly timed comment the daughter makes while sitting with her parents that they remind her of Archie and Edith Bunker whereby Archie is always insulting Edith for being dumb. This, of course, followed by a shocking expression from the mother and a quick cut to something else.There was the hyperactive kid, Harry Altman, from Jersey, who was annoying to watch. Especially as the crew were interviewing him in his bedroom and, when they asked him how long he studied, he told them in the sound of a musical robot, followed by asking whether the boom mike was edible. And all this after he said that people have told him that he talks a lot.Neal, the kid from California, a very quiet fellow and I believe the oldest of the group (and therefore, in his last competition), seemed like one of those kids who might've enjoyed competing at one time, but was probably sorry he ever got involved once his father became his verbal trainer and thereby, increased the amount of pressure he felt in competing. Even if he did mean well, the father came off as not only very stern, but somewhat more involved with the interview than his son, showing all that his family had acquired and his philosophies on success and so forth.There was the girl from Connecticut with matching parents--they both had almost the same hair cut and identical glasses. They appeared to be the least intrusive parents, outside of the one girl's from Texas who couldn't speak English. But they nonetheless, at least in appearance, seemed so bizarre.There was Asheley White who was right there in Washington, DC. She seemed like a smart girl, and certainly a lot less weird (in that home-schooled way) than the other kids. Her mother raised concerns about the daughter not getting really publicized about her Spelling Bee achievements. As cash strapped as the DC Public School system is here, at least when it comes to schools outside of Northwest DC, it was nice to see a teacher devoting so much time for Ashley. I felt bad that she had always become so nervous when she came to the microphone. I imagine a lot of contestants were just like that.And finally, there was the champ from Tampa, Florida. An amazingly bright girl who, although she seemed to have parents who might've forced more on her academically with her oddly making comments about what life is like in India compared to the United States (presumably based on things she was told by her parents). I like the three boys who she competed with at school who offered some commentary throughout her scenes in the film. They seemed to really be proud of her.There were former Spelling Bee winners who commented on the value of winning the championship, including the first ever winner of a National Spelling Bee in the late 20s. There was an interview with the "pronouncer" of the words, and also some of the ESPN coverage, which only furthered parodies the whole thing. There was even an interview with a kid named Georgie who had almost a military philosophy of life: respect Jesus, honor thy parents, and try your hardest.Spelling Bees are a piece of Americana, but maybe in a more demented sort of way because of the nature of their contestants and worse, their parents. Honestly, I think they all mean well, but the obsession is just so comical. I think Spellbound proves that much.