"Spellbound" (2002), dir by Jeff Blitz

Who wants to watch a movie about a spelling bee? I do.

I got to go to a super-secret-special screening of this for a reason I can't even remember now. Ok, the screening wasn't secret. And it couldn't have been that special if I was there. And there were only about ten or twelve other people in the little screening room on some movie lot that, again, I can't even remember the name of. Did I dream this whole thing?

I went because it was free and I like documentaries. I picked up a promo packet and learned to my delight that it was directed by a fellow graduate of the Johns Hopkins University. I know Jeff Blitz zero percent, but I was so surprised to come across a Hopkins grad that I was instantly rooting for the movie.

Sure, it's about the National Spelling Bee and the crazy amount of studying these kids do to get to the finals, and about the slightly kooky personalities of the kids themselves (because you have to be kooky to be a schoolkid and be drawn to something difficult and nerve-wracking that does not involve varsity letters or performances of "The Music Man"). And yes the kids are endearing and compelling and all that, as is anyone who is passionately engaged in a quest.

But it turns out that this movie is really about families, especially the families that make up our mongrel nation of immigrants, and about the types of people who strive for greatness even if they don't know why they're doing it, and most of all about the heart-breaking amount of hope and love parents put into their kids, and the utter obliviousness of the kids to the depth of that hope. I've never seen a movie that illustrated the parental bond so clearly and sensitively without being cloying or sentimental or fake. The subjects of this film didn't know to create themselves or represent themselves for the cameras because they thought they were just talking about words.

One of the spellers comes from a small Pennsylvania town much like the ones I grew up around, and her parents are the kind of Pennsylvanians I know so well: modest and self-deprecating to the point of expressing disappointment in who they are and what they’ve made of their lives. They know how special their daughter is, but they don’t know how special they are for the simple fact of loving her and being kind and for caring about what’s going on in her life. Their story says everything that Tuesdays with Morrie tried to say about the meaning of life.

By the climax of the movie, my heart was pounding and I was literally perched forward on the edge of my seat. And all they were doing was spelling!