Movie: Akeelah and the Bee (#216, Topic D)

On the 1st and 3rd Saturday evenings, our retirement community hosts a free movie, complete with refreshments. Tonight's offering was Akeelah and the Bee, on an 11-year-old African-American girl's experience in Spelling Bee contests. I have seen two other movies with this theme; I did not like them because I felt/feel that SP contests constitute torture. Thus, I went in tonight's screening half-heartedly. As it turned out, it was a most heart-warming movie I have seen in a long while. It was difficult for a disadvantaged teen from a run-down school district to survive, let alone to shine. Thus, it was not surprising that, at first, our heroine, Akeelah, did not want to enter her school's inaugural SP contest. Shy and introverted, she did not want to appear and be laughed at in front of a large number of onlookers. With the death of her father when she was only 6, her working mother had her hands full in taking care of several children single-handedly; she was against Akeelah's involvement in SP, particularly her attendance at the school was less than satisfactory. But, Akeelah survived her school's SP contest; with little support, she almost did not survive the next round, a regional contest. By that time, an African-American English professor became her coach (SP training is indeed tough); her mother also relented. When she survived the next round, she was on her way to the National SP Contest, in DC. The last 5 contestants in the National SP contest included a Mexican-American (who, from a prosperous family, was 15th the year before), a Chinese-American (who, the runner-up in the two previous contests, had a stereotyped harsh disciplinarian as father). After the Mexican-American and two other contestants dropped out, the championship was between Akeelah and the Chinese-American. During a break, Akeelah saw her opponent being harshly reprimanded by his father. Realizing that her opponent was making his last appearance and that he would likely face a difficult time from his father were he again the runner-up, Akeelah deliberately spelled a relatively easy word (on which she had been drilled earlier) incorrectly. The Chinese-American, realizing what she was trying to do (the earlier drill was done by them together), much to his credit, refused to cooperate, but spelled that same word incorrectly as well. After exhausting 25 difficult words (which never happened before), the two were declared co-champions. The beauty of this movie is on the African-American community, which was proud of what Akeelah accomplished and was backing her all the way. In a touching scene, her mother revealed that she had to drop out from college to take care of her family; she wanted Akeelah to succeed, saying that "you have 50,000 tutors [to build her vocabulary every way she could], beginning with me." Indeed, they were rooting for her in front of TVs. A truly beautiful movie, well played by the three youngsters, Akeelah's mother, and the English professor. My eyes were moist during the last quarter of this movie.