A stylish D-O-C-U-M-E-N-T-A-R-Y about speeling! (Spellbound [2003] (DVD))

Name: Ailran

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Product:	Spellbound [2003] (DVD)
Date:	23.10.05 (232 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A fascinating insight into Americans competitive natures.

Disadvantages: Some of the parents come close to child abuse!

“Everyone Wants the Last Word”


Spellbound is the story of 8 young Americans who live to win, to be no 1. The competitive American spirit lives in their veins but their focus is not on the physical, sporting competition but on academic rivalry instead.

All eight of them train hard for the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee, a competition so big that the entrants number in the millions and ESPN televises the final stages live!

The director, Jeffrey Blitz, starts off by introducing us to the eight competitors, out of 250 odd finalists, that the documentary crew followed throughout the finals. Some of them are self trained or just have a natural love of words (Ashley, Angela, Tim), others are as good as pressurised into it by their parents (Neil), even going as far as to hire teachers for extra evening and weekend spelling research.

Taking each teenager in turn he focuses on them, their background, their family and how they reached the finals (there is an amusing interview with three boys who were beaten by April in the regional finals where they explain how they lost to her). What they feel about the competition and their aims when they get to the finals.
More interesting is the look into how all of them learn to spell words. All of them spend inordinate amounts of their spare time sitting with books, reading dictionaries and the lists of possible words for the competition, on computers with programmes to help them learn new words and with parents, friends or teachers pushing them on.

These kids have devoted their lives to spelling and only Emily seems to have any sort of life outside of learning words and practising, practising, practising!

This is the most absorbing part of the documentary, you find yourself picking out your favourites, deciding which one of the eight you want to win. You cannot help it; you are drawn into their lives and automatically choose the two or three you like the most. In my case this was the ones who had a real love of words, who wanted to learn as opposed to those that were being pushed into it by family or for the ‘glory’ of winning!

Though with eight entrants being followed this section does become a bit repetitive, there is after all only so much you can say about a group of kids who love spelling without going over similar themes, it is needed so that the tension levels can be raised for the second part of the documentary.

Even though BBC recently did their own mini version of a spelling bee (Hardspell I think it was called!) this kind of competition isn’t something we get here, it seems to be something peculiarly American. It’s not something we, or I couldn’t anyway, can relate to, to understand why they go through all this. That is my one fault with this film; I would have liked to know more about what makes them want to go through the stress it entails!

Once the documentary reaches the National Spelling Bee everything changes. The individual children we have just got to know become part of the crowd, eight become part of 250 and big business and organisation takes over. The stage is set with chairs for all finalists, crowding the area and all looking identical in their new t-shirts supplied by the organisers and looking like a sports team in their team kit.

When the contest starts it may not be as absorbing as the first half of the film but it sure racks up the tension. You WILL have your favourites by now and when they come centre stage, called up for their word to spell, you will find yourself sitting on the edge of your seat. Especially when you can see them start to struggle with the word they are given, asking for the definition or the words’ root language; which seemingly is part of the rules. Telling us some of the rules, like what they are able to ask the judges about the words, would have been interesting, maybe not necessary but useful.
It also seems to be luck as to whether you get a good word or not, some of them are very easy, while some of them I’ve never even heard of!

The crews talk to the families during the contest and after their child has been eliminated. Trying to give us a glimpse into how they feel about the contest and how much the misspelling of the word and their elimination from the contest effects them and their child, and some of them are hit really hard by it.

Do the filmmakers manage to strike it lucky and follow the winner? You’ll have to watch it to find out!

This is a tremendous documentary and it I would recommend it to anyone. See it if you get the chance you will not regret it!



Certificate: U
Running Time: 96 minutes
Director: Jeffrey Blitz

The Kids:

Harry – The hyperactive talker
April – The self taught, quiet girl
Neil – Indian boy, pushed hard by parents, loads of teaching.
Nupur – Indian girl, parents again want her to do well.
Ashley – Working class girl from Washington DC
Angela – Self taught, parents Mexican and speak little English
Ted – The down to earth, homespun farmers boy
Emily – Rich girl, third time in the finals

DVD EXTRAS

Trailer – Always interesting to see after the film.

Deleted Scenes – Involving a couple of kids that didn’t make the final cut of the film. This is quite good as it makes you wonder how many kids they did follow through the early stages to get so many finalists.

Commentary – from the filmmakers.

Epilogues – Small section on what the kids are up to now. Interesting but not enough detail in it to make it essential.

Educational Guide Hangman Game – kind of fun for a little while, but not great.

Spelling Game – which is good, multiple choice though as it would have to be on a DVD but interesting words used but still rather easy.

Information from the National Literary Association

Summary: One of the best non political documentaries ever made.