thoughtcrumbs

Spellbinding

Spellbound is a brilliant and charming documentary about nine eighth graders competing in the the National Spelling Bee. Surprisingly poignant and sympathetic, the Oscar-nominated movie features smart children radiating normality in the presence of their parents, who are at best quirky, at worst damagingly domineering:

• One mother spent five minutes extolling the academic prowess of her child. She and her husband sat on the couch, beaming through the interview. A terrier licked her shin the whole time.
• When asked how his daughter became such a good speller even though he had immigrated from Mexico twenty years ago and still couldn't speak English, a father said, "Well, I've been herding these cows for twenty years, and they still can't speak English, either."
• Finally, one man hired a daily spelling tutor for his son. Plus a specialist to cover the words of French origin. And tutors for the Spanish and German words. Oh, and he paid 1000 people in India to chant and pray for his child's success.

Knuckles white and exhaling fiercely every time someone successfully spelled cabotinage or kookaburra, the audience at the Portland International Film Festival giddily bonded with these children. I remembered the time I lost my school's spelling bee, choking on bobolink, a bird that would haunt the rest of my middle school years. I blamed the judge's initial mispronunciation of the word, a coping strategy shared by another child in the movie. With interviews running the gamut from the first winner in 1925, the competition's official word pronouncer, and the gun-and-explosives-loving brother of one Missouri contestant, the film delves into hilarious details and left all of us entranced.