SPELLBOUND

Director: JeffreyBlitz (no major film work)
Starring: documentary on National Spelling Bee

This documentary about 200 world-class dweebs spelling words I'd never heard of before should not have been as enjoyable as it was. It couldn't be, right? However, when I was watching some of these sweet, absurd, lonely, and uplifting children's stories, it was impossible to wipe the smile of my face.

The documentary really only focused on some of the more interesting of the National Spelling Bee participants: The daughter of a poor, illegally immigrated Mexican family in Amarillo, the flaky and endlessly upbeat Jewish kid from New York City, the depressed and lonely kid from some nowhere in the flat middle of America. The downside was that the winner of the Bee was, of course, some absurdly inhuman home-schooled Indian child from Conneticut. The movie didn't dwell on him for good reason. In the end, there wasn't much of a story in this documentary. Far too much time was spent at the actual competition rather than on the more interesting interviews with families and children. Since these kids were such a joy to watch, though, there's no way that I can give this movie a poor grade.

Standouts: A few quirky and enjoyable children spelling their hearts out.
Blowouts: The winners (and I predict most of the rest of the contestants) didn't have much of a story to tell.

Grade: B-