Akeelah and the Bee is not about the bees and the flowers, but about spelling bees! As there have recently been two other films on kids and their ability to spell, including the acclaimed documentary Spellbound (2003) and the flop Bee Season (2005), you wouldn't think audiences would crave another? But Akeelah and the Bee has something more going for it. What is amazing, in this day of computers and spell checkers is that kids can still be fascinated, and some even have an innate knack for the art of spelling, at least enough to support contests in North America in schools, districts, regions and one great national "Bee". Audiences seem also to be intrigued by this type of film as Akeelah and the Bee has had a gross of P266 million from both cinemas and DVDs in the US (the DVD was out in August 2006). This is impressive for a delightful film about learning and human relationships - Bee Season made a 10th of that. It was on M-Net last Saturday so if you saw it you know why.
Akeelah Anderson (the endearing Keke Palmer), a seventh grade student in a local middle school, lives with her mother Tanya (Angela Bassett) and her two older brothers and a sister in East Los Angeles. She attends a school in Crenshaw that is as poverty stricken and troubled as the community it serves. Her father was murdered when she was six. Now at 11, she still talks to him.
Akeelah loves spelling and learning and she does it using her own mnemonic device-watch carefully as it is quite fascinating. She plays scrabble on her computer and always breaks the bank. Though she is bright and capable she hides it from others because she doesn't want to be considered a freak, labelled a "brainiac", even lose her friends. She also doesn't like being laughed at, so is fluent in both Ebonics and American English. The school, seeking recognition, after Akeelah wins their first spelling bee, sponsors her to the district and then regional competitions. They realise that Akeelah, in spite of her exceptional abilities, needs coaching and arrange for Professor Joshua Larabee (the severe but convincing Laurence Fishburne, who also produced the movie), who is on sabbatical and lives in the neighbourhood, to work with her. At first she rejects his help: he doesn't like her attitude and she doesn't like his, calling him "dictatorial, truculent and supercilious". After the district "Bee", the next competition is for Southern California and the top three contestants in that will get to go to the National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC. Yes, Akeelah does well, as would be expected, as the movie is hers. But the movie is greater than that story. Akeelah's mother Tanya works in a hospital and is frustrated, not only because of the death of her husband, but also because her own aspirations were thwarted by a lack of conviction about what she was capable of doing. This is a movie all about confidence and believing in yourself. It is also about how people need to help each other. Tanya and Akeelah have little time for each other and their poor communication exacerbates things. Dr Larabee is very demanding. He won't accept any nonsense from Akeelah, insisting that she speak standard English correctly (not Black English or Ebonics) and learn the background of language (phonetics, origins of words from French, Latin and Greek and how they impact on spelling), to understand where "big words come from" and how they are made up of little words. He teaches her that real leaders understand the power of words and want to use words to change the world, as knowledge is power. Dr Larabee has his own problems that he tries to keep hidden from Akeelah, but she is desperately seeking a father figure and guesses at his secrets. To avoid excelling Akeelah has been skipping school. She misses enough days to be required to go to summer school. Because he wants her to win in the "Bees" the principal (Curtis Armstrong) agrees to release her for three hours a day to work with Dr Larabee. But spelling is about more than winning. What happens to you when you try to lose, and when you do this because you think it is best for the other person that you don't win (like telling white lies to protect people)?
Akeelah would like to drop out, but when she finds she has 50,000 coaches, she becomes determined to continue to compete. There are three fine juvenile stars in the film representing African-Americans, Hispanics and Chinese-Americans. Akeelah makes friends easily with the charming Javier (J.R. Villarreal), but her other challenger, Dylan (Sean Michael Afable), who is controlled by a domineering father is less approachable, yet she tries to reach out to him. Dylan has been to Washington twice before and came in second each time, much to his father's annoyance - it is either number one or "second place all your life".
Doug Atchison, who also wrote the script, directs Akeelah and the Bee. In Keke Palmer he has found an actress who will go places. The cinematographer is M. David Mullen; the editor is Glenn Farr; the music is by Aaron Zigman.
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