Akeelah and the Bee (2006)
AKEELAH AND THE BEE * * *
AKEELAH AND THE BEE * * * ½
Running time
:112 min.
Genre
:Drama
Distributor/Producer
:Lions Gate Films/2929 Productions/Starbucks Entertainment
Director
:Doug Atchison
Screenplay
:Doug Atchison
Cast
:Angela Bassett, Laurence Fishburne, Keke Palmer, Curtis Armstrong, J.R. Villareal
MPAA Rating
:PG for some language
I knew it. I truly did - I had a sinking suspicion "Akeelah and the Bee" would end with someone spelling out "L-O-V-E."
And I don't care.
Ordinarily, such a saccharine-drenched outpouring of unadulterated schmaltz would guarantee instant separation from my lunch. But "Akeelah and the Bee" is different.
Simply, sweetly and elegantly told, this is a wonderful little family film without a single cynical frame - and a drama that excels above even the documentary "Spellbound" at encapsulating the unbearable pressure cooker of spelling bee competition.
I've participated in a few spelling bees, winning one of them along with my company team a few years ago for our local literacy council fundraiser - but nothing compared to the rolling boil these kids must dive into, to compete on the nationally televised stage of the Scripps Spelling Bee. Writer-director Doug Atchison, in a feature patently unlike anything he's touched before, has a preternatural feel for the soul-shattering terror of facing a crowd in a display of "smarts," hearing each breath echo into that unforgiving microphone.
But it's the humanity behind that march to the mike that makes his film special. As the title promises, the film focuses on one speller, Akeelah (a simply delightful Keke Palmer), who's by far the smartest kid at her inner-city L.A. middle school. She's a sweet, loving kid armed with a fierce, questioning intelligence and a good family at home, albeit a working mother (Angela Bassett) who can't understand why her daughter aces spelling tests but sometimes ditches class.
Her principal, Mr. Welch (Curtis Armstrong, best known as "Booger" of the "Revenge of the Nerds" series), cuts a deal with Akeelah: take a shot at the school's spelling contest, or spend a semester in detention. She nails it, of course, and catches the eye of Principal Booger's old friend Dr. Joshua Larabee (Laurence Fishburne), who thinks she has a legitimate shot at the title in the Scripps Spelling Bee.
The basic plot was growing whiskers during the Mesozoic era - but there's a simple reason why the story of the smart underdog kid's march to triumph with a determined mentor has become so cliched: It works. Akeelah's initial suspicion of, then grudging acceptance of, and finally love for Dr. Larabee (and vice-versa) is classical storytelling that still retains power because it plays every conceivable cliché as if it were new - and earns every moment of it.
Even the inevitable training montages - Akeelah jump-roping as her mnemonic device while she absorbs W.E.B. DuBois' vocabulary, working flash cards as she becomes Larabee's free labor pool in the garden - don't register as hackneyed devices in Atchison's hands. He's a lean storyteller, using the most efficient means at his disposal for the obligatory moments so he can save room for the good stuff.
And there's plenty of it - just the inquisitive half-nod Akeelah shoots at Larabie when she suspects he's full of Guff; his impatient glare at her, masking a deeply felt pride; the irresistible thaw of her mother's reserve; a wonderful sequence where her new friend and co-competitor Javier (J.R. Villareal) stalls, in an epic attempt to allow her time make it back to the stage for her turn ("I almost started tap dancing …").
Then Atchison surprises us. The climactic showdown (what, you didn't think she'd make it all the way to nationals?) deviates from the formula when it counts most. The outcome depends not on who will win the bee, necessarily - but on our young heroine's moral and ethical choice. When's the last time you saw that in a so-called "family film?"
There's never a moment when we're not 100-percent sure absolutely everything will turn out A-OK. But "Akeelah and the Bee" bursts with such a bottomless reservoir of thoughtfulness, heart and good cheer, to suggest it should be any other way is a crime.
"Akeelah and the Bee" is showing at Times Square Cinema, 5201 S. Broadway Ave.; Carmike 14, 7415 S. Broadway Ave.; and The Rose, 1250 SSW Loop 323. Call (903) 581-1818, (903) 939-0260 or (903) 592-7000 for show times.
Ernest Viera