Finally saw this.

Man, this is the movie Christopher Guest DREAMS of making... except that this is all real.

The spelling bee is as suspenseful as you've heard it is. Resistance is futile. Try as I might, I was unable to resist being pulled into the drama of the competition.

But far more entertaining are the family dynamics these children experience. The director and editor did a wonderful job of capturing incidental details that brought reality and outlandish comedy to the interviews. (Somebody give that dog an Oscar.)

Pure joy.

: Man, this is the movie Christopher Guest DREAMS of making... except
: that this is all real.

I have disagreed with you too much lately, so I will just say that, um, I agree that there are certain Guestian moments, although the general arc of the segements in the first half of the film do not strike me as his style.

My Spring Hill Review review seems not to be posted online anywhere, so you get it all:

Spellbound, an Academy-Award nominated documentary from last year that's now opening relatively wide, should be the centerpiece of our collective longing for reality entertainment. Rather than throwing 16 attractive people into the Amazon to backstab each other while, of course, wearing skimpy outfits, Spellbound takes the less manufactured approach: Profile eight intelligent middle schoolers — most good at a multiplicity of academic subjects — and throw them onto a stage with 200 other intelligent adolescents, where they fight fight fight until they fall victim to the misspelled letter. The National Spelling Bee, the subject of Spellbound, is so full of drama, pathos and humor that the idea of fabricating reality though faux millionaires and neverending talent competitions seems not only strange, but unnecessary: The unencumbered truth is interesting enough.

I was worried by the third child that Spellbound might have spread itself too thin, that perhaps it would have been better just to follow around one child's journey for the whole of the film rather than eight shown at length. I was wrong. Most documentaries work best with very focused ideas, but the greatest strength of Spellbound is its matter-of-fact diversity of subjects. The participants do span races and religions, as one might expect, but more interestingly, the film also shows measureless differences in socioeconomic backgrounds (a family of illegal Mexican immigrants; an upper-class child with an au pair), parental interest (a mom who didn't know the date of her son's regional bee; a father who does statistical analyses of words used at prior national bees), participant interest (a Missouri boy who stumbled into winning at Regionals; a girl who studied words eight hours a day during the summer), and, frankly, the normality of the participants. (One child asks if the boom microphone used by the filmmakers is edible.) Spellbound implicitly argues that success in America — which the bee is a microcosm of — is too complex to be defined by any factor, be it hard work, economic background, nature, nurture or even luck. All that and more play a part, but none of those qualities by itself can predict achievement at a spelling bee or in life.

But who cares about that diversity spiel in the previous paragraph? You will not watch Spellbound because it captures the collection of backgrounds of today's academically precocious youth. You will watch Spellbound because it is enormously entertaining. Director Jeffrey Blitz's conceit for the film -- spend the first half introducing the eight children individually, then spend the second half tossing them together into the National Spelling Bee -- ensures that watching the children on-stage at Nationals, throwing out tentative final letters, is more fascinating than just watching the finals of the competition on ESPN. (Yes, the finals really are on ESPN). Further, for those of us relatively academically inclined, it's amusing and a bit humbling when the child seemingly spells a word wrong and..."What? She spelled it right? It's really spelled like that? I'm checking my Webster's when I get home."

Perhaps because I was not a terrific speller in my youth, or perhaps because my school days came during the transition from encyclopedias to the Internet, I wonder if Spellbound glosses over some of the major 21st Century issues with spelling bees. There's the isolationism of long hours of studying lists of words, of course -- along with the dubious educational advantage to doing such -- but I also wonder about the anachronistic nature of a talent now immediately available to any average student with a word processor. For example, I don't know how to spell the word "anachronistic," but I typed in "anacronistic," Microsoft Word underlined my incorrect spelling in red, I right clicked for a list of possible corrections, and no one would have known the wiser had I not written this sentence. But that's peripheral to the enjoyment of Spellbound, which is never less than interesting, and never less than ingrosing. Uh, I mean "engrossing."

Dale

Prins, may I re-print your review on my site? It pretty much encapsulates what I admire about the film.

: Prins, may I re-print your review on my site? It pretty much
: encapsulates what I admire about the film.

You have my permission, but I'd advise you ask Lucy at the Spring Hill Review first. It shouldn't be an issue; they've always granted permission in the past. (Since I haven't seen the July '03 issue yet, I'm not quite sure it made it in, or if they edited it slightly; there was a time-crunch for that volume.)

Dale

Dude, you've got guts admitting your spelling is so far off.

Because it may not be clear, and because I don't what PTC to think too poorly of me: While the "anacronistic" bit is real, "engrossing"/"ingrosing" is a joke. And not my best one, quite honestly.

Dale

The Spellbound DVD is a must-see, folks.

Not only is the film a delight the second time around, but there's a WHERE ARE THEY NOW? section that gives you updates on each of the spotlighted contestants.

It's wonderful to see that most of these kids are growing up and achieving remarkable things.

There is also footage from three other contestants whose stories didn't make the final cut.

Just caught it and what a delight!!!

Although, I'm not sure the filmmaker is brilliant. He doesn't have to be. Life is. I wondered at the end of the film, "How hard was it to make that film?" Even if the answer is... not at all, I suppose part of great art is luck ... like the pulitzer prize winning news photos, those people are excellent at their craft, but unless they're in the right place at the right time...

I also found it interesting that the father who's father had paid 5000 people to be praying, and was going to feed 1000 starving people if Neil won, was very okay with the 4th or 5th place finish. TONS of presure on the kid, but unrelenting love, and a seemingly good relationship. That's reality, doesn't fit into cliche's.

Lastly, I've long been dreaming up a play about Spelling Bee kids and their families, but as Sonnenfield said to PTA after seeing Boogie Nights. "No need now."

Yeah I just saw it yesterday and enjoyed it a lot. Funny, poigninant (don't go there with my spelling!), suspensful & humbling. There are two things that bother me right now:

1 - Why is a spelling Bee? We in the UK, alas, have no tradition of spelling bees - where does the name come from

2 - I felt a bit uncomfortable laughing at some of the stuff here. I mean I did laugh just cos it seems dishonest not too, but at the same time I was left thinking "is this OK". The nearest I can draw by anaolgy is the humour in Punch Drunk Love towards the start where you laugh and then you realise that there's issues there. Did anyone else feel this or was it just me.

Also I was quite interested by the spiritual angle in this film. Particularly the girl who was a self-titled "Prayer Warrior", and the Hot favourite who - respect to him - spoke about his faith the way it was.

Also - does anyone know if any of the kids were autistic? As Prins said above they were generally well rounded, but a teaching assistant I watched with said she reckonned that some of them seemed like they were.

Generally I liked the variation in backgrounds (with one exception). So the asian lad who had his dad's drive & strategic tactical mind seemingly forced on him seemed to be on a totally different end of the scale to the smallest boy (who lets face it steals the show), to the kid who was so terribly driven and her parents trying to encourage her to be more... well ... of a child. I also liked the way the winner was one of the ones who stood out least at the start and arguably seemed the most normal of all of them.

One thing that did stand out for me was that IIRC only one child was from a single parent family. Personally I was routing for her, and was sad when she was first out. Obviously 1 single parent family out of 8 is not representative of the nation as a whole, but I did wonder how representative it was of the 249 finalists.


Matt

PS - Dan. I'm not sure "in the right place at the right time..." is really fair to the director. How many companies did he haul himself round before one didn't end thus.

Dir "I've got this great idea for a documentary. Its a load of kids spelling ..."
Prod: Well we'll be in touch.

Credit where credit's due he saw the brilliance of the idea, somehow got someone to let hm make it and then did it well.


PPS I find it ironic that a country that can't spell "colour" or "saviour" has a national spelling contest, that's on TV.

Just a note that the National Spelling Bee is in progress with finals on ESPN tonight and tomorrow. Website has the round by round results with words and spellings given.

WE HAVE A WINNER!

autochthonous wins
the word the runner up missed was schwarmerei

... and some kids didn't know that. The youth of today.

Matt

The final moments of this year's Bee may have been the most dramatic ever! I'm giving up NCAA basketball for spelling

Couldn't believe the poor runner-up who, before being eliminated, actually fainted while at the microphone, got up, and then spelled his word correctly. I just don't see how those kids can handle the pressure.

We watched the last round or so, and it's funny how the film presumably has turned the Bee into even more of a spectacle, coverage-wise. ESPN carried these little interview-blurbs on the candidates between spellings, and I guess a number of them identified the film as their favorite movie. Sheesh-- all those hours memorizing roots and word lists and whatnot and even their sparse moments of leisure time are eclipsed by images of kids spelling words! At some level, I'm sure the film resonated with this year's spellers because they get to see other kids like themselves, who have sacrificed what they have, and so there's an effect kind of like seeing yourself on the Jumbotron at a baseball game. But still, the film treads (however stealthily) into the side of the Bee's kids and parents that makes us ask whether these things are worth the effort, and whether they are a healthy outlet for all of that disciplined concentration. I wonder if they pick up on that subtext.

I mean, Nupur's ability to seem well-adjusted and driven but unafflicted by nervous tics is one of her most endearing qualities. I was also a big fan of the boy who chased the chickens around in his yard and who seemed almost unfazed when he misspelled his word.

Then, at the end of last week, I read an article in Sports Illustrated about the Princeton chess champ who played against the winner of the Trenton State Prison chess tournament. The author noted that while he was watching the final rounds of the prison's tourney, the players all had their own modes of concentration, but there were none of the repetitive physical gestures or facial tics seen at a normal chess tournament.

And then I recently saw Dirty Pretty Things and noted the line, "Good at chess, bad at life."

Somewhere, Bobby Fischer is writing a screed of one sort or another on a roll of toilet paper.

Now, obviously, I don't know whether there's any true causation (and if so, which would cause which) or just correlation (and whether it's true correlation or just a few notable coincidences), but-- well, this is just to say that my oldest daughter got a "Learn to play chess" set for her seventh birthday last month, and we've played one game, but I'm not sure that we'll get it out anytime soon.

Did any pof the kids from the film feature this year? I mean the cover-boy for the film (y'know the one with no internal dialogue) was really young in the film. Surely he would have entereed this year?

Matt

Not that I know of. I don't recall the precise year of the film's competition, but the DVD has a "where are they now" feature, and they're college-age now.

Here's a poignant update on the contestant from Washington, D.C.

Alas, registration is required for your link, Christian.

Sorry about that. It's a good article, but it's too long to paste into one of these messages.