Under enormous pressure, at a crucial moment, Akeelah does something good. I've often said it's not sadness that touches me the most in a movie, but goodness. Something happens during the finals of the National Bee that you are not going to see coming, and it may move you as deeply as it did me. Now I am going to start dancing around the plot.
#Akila and the spelling bee movie#
He is demanding, uncompromising, and he tells her again and again: "Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure." This quote, often attributed to Nelson Mandela, is actually from Marianne Williamson, but no less true for Akeelah (the movie does not attribute it).
#Akila and the spelling bee how to#
The sessions between Akeelah and the professor are crucial to the film, because he is teaching her not only strategy but how to be willing to win. Are you gonna sue me for sexual harassment?" And as for Javier's feelings for Akeelah, at his party, he impulsively kisses her. Hearing his father berate him, Akeelah feels an instinctive sympathy. Dylan, driven by an obsessive father, treats the spelling bee like life-and-death, and takes no hostages. Javier, who lives with his family in the upscale Woodland Hills neighborhood, invites Akeelah to his birthday party (unaware of what a long bus trip it involves). Villarreal) and an Asian American named Dylan ( Sean Michael Afable). What makes it transcend the material is the way she relates to the professor, and to two fellow contestants: a Mexican-American named Javier (J.R.
So far I imagine "Akeelah and the Bee" sounds like a nice but fairly conventional movie. The movie depends on her, and she deserves its trust. It puts her in Dakota Fanning and Flora Cross territory, and there's something about her poise and self-possession that hints she will grow up to be a considerable actress. Keke Palmer, a young Chicago actress whose first role was as Queen Latifah's niece in "Barbershop 2," becomes an important young star with this movie. Akeelah practices in secret, and after she wins a few bees even the tough kids in the neighborhood start cheering for her. Tanya Anderson ( Angela Bassett) has issues after the death of her husband, and values Akeelah's homework above all else, including silly afterschool activities like spelling bees. And for Fishburne, it's a reminder of his work in " Searching for Bobby Fischer" (1993), another movie where he coached a prodigy.Īkeelah is mocked not only at school. Coaching her is a way out of his own shell.
Joshua Larabee ( Laurence Fishburne), on a leave of absence after the death of his daughter. Her real chance at national success comes after a reluctant English professor agrees to act as her coach. The story of Akeelah's ascent to the finals of the National Spelling Bee makes an uncommonly good movie, entertaining and actually inspirational, and with a few tears along the way. No, she doesn't have a photographic memory, nor is she channeling the occult as the heroine of " Bee Season" does. Beating time with her hand against her thigh as sort of a metronome, she cranks out the letters and arrives triumphantly at the words. The thing with Akeelah ( Keke Palmer) is that she can spell, whether she wants to or not.
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