My wife and I watched a wonderful movie a few days ago called Akeelah and the Bee. After watching it over a week ago, my wife’s Granny called it simply, “The best picture I’ve ever seen.” I couldn’t put it any better, myself.
When I was a kid, I read Charlotte’s Web probably a dozen times. Every time I read it I cried when I got to the page where the spider dies. I mention this only to illustrate that I’m quick to cry (and I’m not ashamed to admit it—all real men cry), and I tend to enjoy and return often to stories that bring tears to my eyes. Akeelah and the Bee has secured its place in my DVD collection by making me cry twice.
Akeelah and the Bee is a coming of age story for an 11-year-old girl and, frankly, her whole community. Akeelah Anderson (Keke Palmer) lives in a South Los Angeles ‘hood. Her principal discovers that she has an aptitude for spelling and encourages her to enter the school spelling bee. It takes her a while to warm up to the idea—she doesn’t want to be labeled a brainiac by her classmates—but the principal thinks she has a shot at competing in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Tutored by a reluctant but hopeful English professor, Dr. Joshua Larabee (Laurence Fishburne), she makes her way through the spelling bee circuit, making many new friends and some new enemies and discovering that there is much more to spelling bees—and life—than winning.
This movie touches on issues of civil rights and racial equality, grief over lost loved-ones, inner-city violence, friendship, community, and self-esteem. You might be tempted to assume it’s just another sappy cookie-cutter middle school competition movie, and I suppose in a few ways it is, but in many ways it goes so far beyond its genre that it really deserves a place on your shelf, too.
See also:
* Akeelah and the Bee trailer at Apple Trailers →
* Akeelah and the Bee at IMDb.com →
* Akeelah and the Bee at TopTenReviews.com →