Akeelah and the Bee (2006, PG)

This is just a delightful film.  It’s definitely pitched toward the “family” demographic, and there are places where it gets a bit cheesy, but it’s also a terrific underdog story with an engaging heroine and some great themes.

11-year-old Akeelah is taken aback when her English teacher encourages her to join her school spelling bee.  She’s remarkably bright for her age and an excellent speller, but rather than living up to her potential, she’s been living down to expectations, not wanting to be singled out as a “freak” for enjoying learning.  Before she knows it, though, Akeelah is headed to the district bee and her principal is setting his sights on the national competition in Washington, D.C., facing off against kids from suburban schools with far more money, resources, and experience.  She begins a tentative mentor-mentee relationship with the erudite but reserved Dr. Larabee, who coaches her on how to attack unfamiliar words and, more importantly, how to recognize the parts of her that threaten to hold her back.

There’s a lot going on here that’s pretty neat.  It’s clear that Akeelah doesn’t have access to the same privilege that many of her competitors do – to attend the study club at another speller’s school, she has to take the city bus from South LA, and her family can’t afford new clothes for her to wear at the bee – but by the same token, when she starts to excel, she becomes the hope of her whole neighborhood.  There’s a great thread of community running through the film that belies stereotypes about “rough” neighborhoods and inner-city schools.  I really like that.  Any place, any community, has both positive and negative points, and the movie explores both sides, as well as the pros and cons of the more affluent backdrops of the other spellers, in fine detail.

The relationship between Akeelah and Dr. Larabee is terrific.  She can be a smart mouth, “insolent” in his words, and her first instinct is usually to push back against his strictness, but she surprises him, too.  She’s not afraid of hard work, she can give as good as she gets, and she’s remarkably perceptive.  I like the ongoing theme of his insistence that she speak “properly” while he’s coaching her (ie, not use African-American vernacular.)  He argues that she only speaks that way with her classmates because she wants to fit in, but that she’s better than that.  And while Akeelah proves that she can code-switch pretty successfully, she also challenges the idea of prescriptive grammar, pointing out that language is fluid and that “diss” is just as valid a word as “disrespect.”

I’m not familiar with Keke Palmer, who plays Akeelah, but she’s really wonderful in the role:  smart, tough, vulnerable, determined, and curious.  What a fine young heroine.  Laurence Fishburne is really great as Dr. Larabee, and Angela Bassett does a nice job in the role of Akeelah’s mother.  I also recognize both of Akeelah’s brothers, played by Lee Thompson Young (who was on season 8 of Scrubs) and Julito McCullum (featured on season 4 of The Wire.)

Warnings

A little swearing and thematic elements.