Spellbound
281 Dreams
Everyone knows that the difference between winning and losing your Oscar pool next March is the smaller categories. Everyone knows, or at least has a good idea the way things will go down in the major categories, and if there is a big surprise — Jim Broadbent last go-round for Iris — everyone will be equally surprised. It’s picking right in the smaller categories that does the trick.
The documentary categories can be the hardest of the smaller categories to pick correctly. There are several reasons for this. First, nobody sees documentaries, much. The voters don’t, by and large. And the rules are quirky, keeping the critically acclaimed Hoop Dreams out of the running, for example. There just isn’t any good way to pick who will win on a consistent basis.
I cannot tell you who will win the 2002 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. But I can tell you the way to bet. If Spellbound shows up on your ballot, write it down, quick.
(Note: This turned out to be very bad advice indeed; Spellbound was nominated, but was very unfairly beaten by a movie that wasn’t even a documentary. Pshaw.)
Spellbound won the documentary section of the SXSW Film Festival in Austin this spring, and deservedly so. I caught it at the Atlanta Film Festival this week, and was fortunate to do so. I caught it right after a disastrous screening of Mike Figgis’s miserable Hotel, and gratefully so. After seeing that wretched morass of a film, I needed to see something different, something hopeful, something exceptional, and I did. Spellbound restored my faith in movies, restored my faith in the power of film to uplift and challenge audiences.
Spellbound is about the 1999 finals of the National Spelling Bee, of all things. This may seem an odd choice, it may seem dull and uninteresting. It is not. It is the most riveting, most suspenseful movie you will see this year.
If you don’t believe me, fine. If you think that the National Spelling Bee is primarily about unintentional humor — the Boston Sports Guy on ESPN seems to think so — that’s fine. You need to see this if you can. You need to see how you will react when these kids get these impossible words to spell — “heloplankton” and the like — and whether they manage to get them right or not. You need to see just how gut-wrenching this whole thing can be from the inside.
The genius of Spellbound is that it is about the participants rather than the contest. The movie travels around the country, spotlighting eight of the participants in their hometowns, talking to them, talking to their parents, talking to their friends and teachers. The stories are just incredibly fascinating. A lot of these kids are second-generation immigrants. Some of them live in circumstances that are as depressing as can be. Some of them seem to be gifted, others are the product of constant practice. (One parent tells us that the Spelling Bee is another form of child abuse, and you will have to draw your own conclusions about that.) There’s the girl from Perryton, Texas, at the top of the Panhandle, whose parents don’t speak English. There’s the incredibly well-adjusted girl from New Haven, who seems impossibly normal. There’s the quiet, meditative boy from San Clemente with the pack of spelling tutors. There’s the hyperactive, imaginitive kid from New Jersey who can’t sit still. There’s the inner-city girl from Washington, D.C., who takes the Metro to get to the contest.
Spellbound spends time with these kids, gets to know them, gets to tell part of their stories, gets to share their thoughts and apprehensions with us. This builds the suspense like you would not believe. We see the 281 kids on the stage when the Spelling Bee starts, with their 281 dreams, but we actually know eight of them, and are rooting for them wholeheartedly. When one of the other kids misses a word, it’s no big deal. But when one of the kids that we’re following, that we’re rooting for, gets handed a word like “ecclesiastical”, we want them to get it right. We want them to do well. And we are hanging on every letter, hoping that they get it right, hoping that they’ll move on to the next round. Hitchcock couldn’t have asked for a more suspenseful situation.
A small example. The one kid from California, of South Asian descent, is the one who is clearly getting pushed around the most by his parents. (We spend as much time with the parents as we do with the kids, and they are funny and self-revealing and delightful, too.) He has spelling tutors and language tutors and goes through drills over and over again. In a late round, he is handed the word “Darjeeling”, which you would think — given his background — that he would know. But he doesn’t know it, and the stress is killing him. He keeps stalling, asking for definitions, which are clearly not helpful. His father is sitting in the back of the room, his face pressed against his table, his hands hiding his eyes. “D”. “A.” “R.” And then the big question; is he going to get that there is a J there instead of a G? A pause.
“J”.
A huge sigh of relief from the audience.
This may not be your kind of movie. You may never see a documentary feature in a theater for the rest of your life. (Shame on you.) You may not live in a town where this plays. But if Spellbound gets its well-deserved Oscar nomination, and shows up on your ballot for your Oscar pool. choose it.