The Ottery
“If an otter can’t have fun doing something, it just simply won’t do it.”

Akeelah and the Bee: Sticks to the Letter, but Still Spellbinding

October 20th, 2006

Sorry for the puns in my title: when I’ve just watched a movie dealing with wordplay, I can’t resist.

I’ve been wanting to see Akeelah and the Bee for months: I first heard about it at Starbucks (the coffee company partially funded the movie), where I picked up a paper coaster with the word “argillaceous” on it. As a former spelling bee competitor, I’m a guaranteed audience for almost any spelling bee movie, documentary, or play (except last fall’s movie Bee Season, which I’m not interested in seeing because I already read the mediocre book—and because it has Richard Gere in it, and I really don’t like him). The documentary Spellbound is definitely the funniest and cleverest (and also most heartbreaking because you see how much pressure really falls on these kids) entry in the genre, but Akeelah is definitely the most hopeful and encouraging.

Akeelah and the Bee follows the sports-movie formula closely: disadvantaged underdog rises against obstacles to succeeed. Writer-director Doug Atchison, in the “making-of” feature among the DVD extras, openly admits being influenced by Rocky and Rudy. In this particular case, Akeelah is a natural word-whiz, having turned to Scrabble and spelling as a form of comfort after her father’s death. Her obstacles? Pretty much the stereotypical ones you’d expect in a story about a smart African American girl from South Los Angeles: an under-funded school with bullies who mock her as a “brainiac,” siblings in various forms of trouble, an initially unsupportive mother. In short, it’s not only the sports-movie formula; it’s also the inspiring-movie-made-by-white-people-about-the-inner-city formula.

Atchison says the story first came to him when he was tutoring children in a South L.A. neighborhood. As I heard his comment, though, I wondered how he could write the film’s dialogue, which features Akeelah switching back and forth fluidly between slang and “proper” grammar.” The “making-of” feature seemed about to answer my question, as a female voice began to say, “Doug called me in to help with the authenticity of the script.” I was expecting to see an African American face appear on screen next—but, no, it was the very recognizable blonde-and-blue-eyed face of Paige Kimble, head honcho of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. However Atchison managed it, the dialogue does seem realistic without being stereotypical, perhaps because it demonstrates how many different “languages” Akeelah is capable of speaking.

Possibly that realism is due to the acting talents of the films’ stars. Big names Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne (as Akeelah’s mother and tutor, respectively) agreed to appear in the low-budget film for peanuts, simply because they felt the story was inspiring. But by far the greatest performance is young KeKe Palmer’s. She makes Akeelah a very believable and lovable character, alternately sharp-tongued and sweet, but smart throughout. At first, she’s reluctant to spell publicly for fear that her peers will laugh at her, but eventually her love of words wins over. At times, she also feels the pressure of the entire community depending on her as its token star—a heavy burden for any 11-year-old.

Some of the best moments of the film involve Akeelah’s interactions with her fellow spelling competitors from Woodland Hills, a much wealthier L.A. neighborhood. Her new friend Javier is loyal, funny, and cares more about friendship than about competition—watching him, you could almost believe that the National Spelling Bee is a blast. And Akeelah’s rivalry with Dylan, who has placed 2^nd in the National Bee two years in a row (much to the dissatisfaction of his father), forms the backbone of at least the last quarter of the movie. I won’t give away any details, but I was very pleased with how the film handled the inevitable Dylan-Akeelah showdown towards the end.

My other favorite moments are perhaps unrealistic, but nevertheless touching. After Dr. Larabee (Fishburne) tells Akeelah he can’t coach her anymore, she finds “coaches” all around her in the community. There’s a great montage in which everyone calls out words from Akeelah’s flashcards: she sits on a car hood as her brother’s druggie friends quiz her, she places apples in a bin as the grocery store owner listens to her spell, she jumps rope (spelling in time to the rhythm) among her school friends. So it’s kind of an extended “public service announcement,” and it may be cheesy, but I like it anyway.

Overall, the film’s “message” can be summed up in the quote that Dr. Larabee has Akeelah read during their first session together:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

While I shy away from the “be yourself” messages that are proliferating in children’s and teens’ movies today, this has a different angle that makes it more palatable. I’ve seen so much false humility among Christians, and this quote gets to the heart of the matter: letting God shine through us isn’t pride, it’s showing others God’s glory, and, as the quote says, allowing them to do the same. The movie attributes these words to Nelson Mandela—and, unfortunately, that’s not quite right. I wish they were Mandela’s words. He did say something similar in a speech, but the actual quote is from New-Agey inspirational writer Marianne Williamson. Argh.

Anyway, Akeelah and the Bee may be formulaic, but I found it enjoyable anyway. If it had been around when I was little, it might have replaced The Girl Who Spelled Freedom on the list of most frequently watched movies.

Entry Filed under: Movies, Uncategorized