Spellbound

reviewed Sun, 29 Jun 2003

Spellbound, which follows eight children in the 1999 National Spelling Bee, was kind of emotional for me, because it stirred up some old feelings.  When one boy from rural Missouri says that very few of his classmates understand multisyllabic words – as he puts it, “There’s this one kid who’s obsessed with trucks, and if you’re not talkin' about an engine or a chassis, unless you say it in real basic English, he won’t understand what you’re talkin’ about” – I was like, “Honey, I was there!”  And then there’s the whole trauma of my lone attempt at a spelling bee, in which I missed the very first word I was given, not because I didn’t know how to spell it, but because I’ve never been able to spell out loud because my brain is usually two letters ahead of my mouth, so although I’m a great speller if I’m writing, I usually screw up spelling aloud, and of course, my alcoholic English teacher who hated me was running the bee, and she took every opportunity to humiliate me in front of the class because my father had told her at the beginning of the class that the work was too easy for me and could she give me extra assignments, so this was great fodder for her to periodically remind the class that I thought I was so smart, yet I got kicked out of the spelling bee on my first word (“gladiator,” if you must know).

And then on top of whatever personal baggage you bring to the theater, you can’t help but be moved by these kids, one way or another.  There are the ones who put too much pressure on themselves, like the doleful girl with the way too-cheery mother (who reminded me of Dustin Hoffman in his Dorothy Michaels incarnation in Tootsie and who’s given to proclaiming things like, “I love to play with words; I think that’s where she got her love of spelling from.  Like, I have this stationery that says “Bee happy,” b-e-e, and there’s little bumblebees all over it!”), and the ones who overcome so much, like the taciturn Missouri boy (I wanted to smack the teacher of his who said that he didn’t really have any friends – did she not realize that this footage was going to be shown to the public?  The poor kid has enough problems without her announcing to the entire world that he’s friendless) or the daughter of illegal immigrants.  And, of course, the ones whose parents go a tad overboard:  one father hires three or four coaches for his son and drills him on as many as 8,000 words a day.  It’s sweet to see how happy the kids feel when they get to the bee and can mingle with others who understand, even like to use, long words; for some of them, it’s the first time they’ve felt like they fit in.

The documentary might be stretching a little by trying to cover eight stories; although they represent an intriguing cross-section of America, the kids are reduced to little more than caricatures (see my previous paragraph).  Too often, the movie goes for the easy laugh, although these are pretty funny (in one town, the local Hooters proudly puts up a sign for the local champion:  “Congradultions [sic] Nupur!”), rather than any real insight.  But the biggest gripe I have is how much time the film gives to the most annoying child, a hyperactive, motormouth camera hog named Harry who mugs and draws out his losing word for so long that even the patient contest monitor warns him twice to cut it out and give his answer (and, of course, Harry complains afterwards that the official pronouncer pronounced the word incorrectly – what a little brat!  Someone needs to tell his parents about Ritalin).

But those are minor complaints; it’s an absorbing, funny, and moving documentary of this bizarre and sometimes creepy subculture of spellers.  I'd like to see a follow-up film twenty years down the line -- I'd like to know that some of these kids turn out okay.

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