Spellbound   

Directed, Produced and Filmed by Jeffrey Blitz   

Original Music by Daniel Hulsizer   

Rated PG

95 minutes in length

Rated G for occasional long words

Do you know how to spell “apocope?”  How about “logorrhea?”  I can guarantee you I don’t (nor does my spell-checker), but I was never in the National Spelling Bee, either.  “Spellbound” is the stirring story of eight young teenagers who hitch their wagons to the stars to be the best spellers in young America, and maybe all of America.  Coming from the far corners of the USA: a ranch in Texas to affluent New Haven, inner city Washington D.C. to a beach home in San Clemente,  these kids have only one thing in common--the desire to be the best.  To be the best in some 9,000,000 contestants at spelling the English language.  To be one of the 249 that travel to the D.C. finals, to be one of the about four-dozen that makes in onto the ESPN televised finals.  Finally, to be the one that gets the roses at the end of the show and is televised across the country and the world.

The fantastically successful brain-child of director, producer and cameraman Jeffrey Blitz, “Spellbound” takes a slice of life that most Americans have written off as an anachronism and makes it into a first-rate drama about growing up smart.  The contestants embody the diversity and work-ethic that has made our nation what it is.  They come from working class families and the homes of rich; from academic parents and those seemingly without high school educations.  Some of the spellers are self-taught and some are the dubious beneficiaries of scientific method, juggling a regimen running to 7,000 words a day and including special tutoring in French, German and Spanish words that have become part of our language.  Some research all of the words in past spelling bees and some just open the dictionary and start practicing.  But they have one thing in common; a bull-dog-like tenacity and single-mindedness of purpose that most adults can only dream about.

Like the animated movie, “Spirited Away,” this film succeeds in performing that most amazing of feats, changing the roles of child and parent.  The parents have varying degrees of involvement in the training and the competition, but the kids are far better at what they do.  They are the stars at this venue, and the parents can only watch and wonder as the kids pull out the solutions to puzzles insolvable by their forebears.  The scenes at the final competition are hilarious, as the parents, many of whom have coached their kids extensively, give up in despair at the words that are presented, only to have their offspring pull through with some kind of hidden magic that they neither see nor understand.  The faces of the children as they win and lose are the very distillation of life.  All you can do is try.  As one the top ten spellers said: “In the end, it comes down to luck.”  Did you, or didn’t you, study that particular word?

There is an element of alienation in being the best at something; a sense of aloneness in harboring the gift of dedication at the age of 12.  These kids don’t fit in amongst their peers at school; they use words that are long and hard to understand.  They wonder why their teachers don’t present ideas and challenges at a higher level, why their mentors don’t seem able to say exactly what they mean.  They have to watch their obsession with spelling and work on having outside activities as well, such as sports.  But for most of the finalists, spelling is their sport.  Spelling is a sport?  Apparently ESPN thinks so, as it televised the finals across the country, and the world, of one the oldest youth competitions in existence.  The finals that determine who is the Rocky of intellectual youth.  The child, written off as a nerd by 90% of her classmates, who makes it onto ESPN as the champion of the day.

Nominated for a Best Documentary academy award, “Spellbound” includes no professional actors, and is virtually the first effort of the film/production crew.  This provides freshness, spontaneity and unpredictability that is unmatched on the screen today.  The production is simple, showing cuts of the eight professionals’ lives and their performance at the contest.  The filming is by hand-held camera much of the time and the interviews in the homes of the contestants are touching in their honesty; from the ranch-hand father who speaks no English to the dog licking the ankles of the finalist’s mother.  The comments of the brothers and sisters about their brainy siblings are touching and sometimes funny.  When one contestant is dropped out of the finals with a word I never heard of, his brother insists, “He spelled it right!”  Tell it to the judges.

The hand-held camera shots remind me of “Blair Witch Project,” as does the steadily rising tension of the story.  But I didn’t like “Blair Witch” because the plot demanded so many dumb mistakes.  The stars in “Spellbound” make no mistakes until the last one that ends their competition, and few in the audience will consider a mistake on a word like “hellebore” dumb.  If you like reality, this is the movie for you.  As the finals proceed through ten grueling rounds you will be on the edge of your seat, trying to guess who will be the victor as you match wits with the obviously superior contestants.  Take it from me you have no way of knowing.  But when the last word is spelled correctly and the audience erupts into cheers, Rocky himself couldn’t have done it better.