Akeelah (Keke Palmer) is an 11-year-old seventh grader with the amazing ability to spell almost every word she hears. She doesn't know the etymologies or even the meanings of all the words at first, but has the power to absorb and recall a word once she sees it. Her father died when she was very young and her mother (Angela Bassett) struggles to keep her family together.
She goes to Crenshaw Middle School in South Los Angeles, known for gangs and racial unrest. When her principal Mr. Welsh (Curtis Armstrong) suggests that she could win the district spelling bee and thus represent her school well, she says, "Why should I stand up for a school that doesn't even have doors for the toilet stalls?"
With the help of a reclusive UCLA professor, Mr. Larabee (Laurence Fishburne) who coaches her over many months, Akeelah wins the district bee, barely makes the cut for the Southern California bee, but becomes a finalist for the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.
If you want to know who wins, you'll just have to see "Akeelah and the Bee." It is a film I recommend with all my heart.
Spelling as sport
Spelling is treated as a sport in the U.S. according to the film (it's on ESPN), but no other country has such competitions. The BBC is tried to launch an interest through a television program in 2004, but I couldn't find any follow up to this information. I thought the 2002 documentary "Spellbound" about a few kids from different geographic places and social backgrounds in the United States was wonderful. I didn't see "Bee Season" (2005); it garnered terrible reviews and was in and out of theaters in the blink of an eye, but I think I might like it just the same.
What's so engaging about "Akeelah and the Bee" (Lionsgate) is the charm of its unsophisticated young actress, Keke Palmer, and the other young actors. Set in South Los Angeles we can experience a little of the social-cultural context that Akeelah has to struggle with just enough to let us know how hard life is in the ghetto.
We also witness racial diversity as well as bias, the immigrant experience, parent-child relationships, and 50,000 coaches who can help us learn if we let them. The film focuses our attention once again on "sports dads" or parents who live their successes and failures vicariously through their children, and the negativity this produces all around.
Fishburne as Akeelah's spelling coach Professor LaraBEE let's us see that spelling bees are about life, not about just letters and the small words that make bigger words. Larabee is brought in to the school by Principal Welsh to observe and identify any of the students with academic potential. Larabee witnesses Akeelah's performance at the school bee that day, and he knows she is special. Over the months that he coaches her, we find out that spelling for him is about life's burdens and triumphs as well.
Personally, I am not a good speller. None of my seven siblings are good spellers. We come by this flaw naturally: our mom was a terrible speller but she had beautiful penmanship. (Now, thanks to computers, none of us can even claim this talent or skill, depending on how you look at it.) I think this is why I am so fascinated by children who can spell; this film is about so many kinds of "smarts"!
Howard Gardner developed a theory of "multiple intelligences" in the mid-1980s. And though disputed by some, the theory has gained popularity in the field of educational methodology; once a teacher can identify how a child is smart, he or she can engage that intelligence for both book learning and life. I saw every one of Gardner's "seven kinds of smart" in this film, and this is why I think every teacher and kid would find something to treasure in "Akeelah and the Bee."
Gardner's 'Multiple Intelligences'
Linguistic intelligence is about words; verbal abilities; the love for words; the strength of words. Spelling is made of words, and small words make big ones as Larabee demonstrates visually to Akeelah. Larabee also uses the power of Nelson Mandela's words to help Akeelah understand her fears and her power as a human person.
Logical/mathematical intelligence is about numbers and reasoning. If there's one thing Akeelah learns it's about reasoning in the film.
Spatial intelligence is about visual smarts or being able "to picture" something. Akeelah has to use a map to get from South Los Angeles to the upper middle class Woodland Hills to visit Javier (J.R. Villarreal) a friend she makes at the district bee. She also has to imagine how she learned a word to be able to spell it.
Bodily/kinesthetic intelligence is about the use of the body to learn. We see Akeela tapping her hand on her leg from the beginning of the film but it is Larabee who realizes it is a mnemonic, that is, Akeelah's way of associating one thing with another to remember.
Musical intelligence is about learning through music. When Akeelah has a conversation with her brother's gang banger, she finds out he once wrote a poem. When her brother scoffs at the idea of this cool, tough guy writing a poem, he says, "Where do you think rap comes from?"
Interpersonal intelligence is about being smart about people. Certainly Larabee is; he can see what others cannot. But Akeelah is as well, and because she connects what she learns from and about people, she is able to project meaning into and for the community, not just herself.
Intrapersonal intelligence is about self, that is, the ability to have personal insight --- to look within, to reflect, to connect life experience and learning. I am reminded here of something John Henry Cardinal Newman once wrote about the educated person: one who is able to learn something in one area and integrate it, that is, apply it across the entire curriculum of the university and life. Although Akeelah is young, she learns this way, as do most of the key characters in the film.
I would add naturalist intelligence, learning from nature, or through the natural world about us --- a true gift. Larabee plants flowers; he tends a garden. It is a metaphor for his life as well as a way to expiate his grief. Nature can heal all of us.
A sleeper hit?
"Akeelah and the Bee" may not win an Academy Award. It is predictable; the acting is sometimes amateur; the dramatic arc seems too simple to work. But these are minor elements. I hope this film will be a sleeper hit, the same way "Whale Rider" was a few years ago. We have too few young female heroines in our movies.
This film has a charm that reaches deep inside of you and makes you want to stand up and cheer for these kids who have Scrabble tournaments at birthday parties. Now that was funny. (Maybe Gardner should add humor to his list of multiple intelligences.) Bottom line: Bee smart and see it. Daughter of St. Paul Sister Rose Pacatte is director of Pauline Books and Media, Culver City, and co-author of the "Lights, Camera, Faith!" Movie Lectionary Series. |