Yet another delightful
treat, a visual one this time, on a child prodigy again, but with an unexpected
turn and a twiddle towards the end!
Well, eleven-year old Akeelah is a seventh grader at a black middle school.
Her dad having passed away when she
was just six, her mom Tanya works as a nurse to make ends meet.
Akeelah is often mocked at, in
school, and hence feels a loner all along!
However, one of her teachers notices
that Akeelah has an exceptional talent on her – a unique gift for spelling out even hard words quite
effortlessly. Soon, even her school principal gets to know about Akeelah’s talent, and encourages her to participate in the spell champs to win laurels for their school!
But...! the only thing that
prevents Akeelah from giving her best on her Spelling talent, is her morbid
fear of the people around her – her school mates, and her community mentality where
people don’t bother about each other at any point of time!
However, her elder brother
Devon encourages her skyhigh on her talent –
- Hey, your
principal
called Mama. Said you did real good in the spelling bee last week. He said you
got a lot of them right. He also said you’ve got an opportunity to go to an
even bigger contest next week.
- I don’t want to do it.
- Why not?
- Everybody’s gonna
be looking
at me and there’s gonna be tons of words I don’t know.
- So you’re scared, huh?
- I mean, my whoIe body said ‘Don’t do it!’.
- But sometimes
your
brain gotta be smarter than your body, you know?
- But I don’t like
my school.
I don’t see why I gotta do anything for them.
- Then do it for
Dad. I mean,
you know how he was about words. He’d have loved to see you do something like
this.
- Well, maybe I should just give up now.
- No no no. No, I’m just saying you need to train
hard. With Dr. Larabee.
- What? I don’t need any help from him. I could do
this on my own.
- Akeelah, the
best spellers
in the world have coaches. I finally got him to consider taking some time
during his sabbatical to work with you. Please, just talk with him. Here. He
doesn’t live far from here.
As a result, Akeelah gets
to meet up with Professor Larabee, a former Spell Bee champ himself –
- What wouId you like to be when you grow up? A doctor, a
lawyer, a standup comic?
- I don’t know. The only thing I’m good at is
spelling.
- Go over there and
read
the quotation that’s on the wall. Read it aloud please.
‘Our deepest fear
is not that
we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask
ourselves ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?’
‘Actually, who
are you not to
be? We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us’.
‘And as we let our own light shine, we
unconsciously give other people permission to do the same’.
And this is the mantra that she regularly says, all to herself almost every day in and day out before and after her
coaching on the spelling front!
As a result, quite soon,
there’s a transformation wrought within her.
Now, Akeelah the timid kid
all of seventh grade, gets to relate well with her professor-coach, her
teachers, her classmates, and her community people as well, quite effortlessly and with such joy!
Even her own street kids
start cheering for her, after she’s won a few spell bees.
Her coach Dr. Larabee, invests
a lot of quality time on her.
He not only teaches her
the nuances of words, etymologies, mnemonic skills etc, but also motivates her
all the way!
However, one fine day, ahead of
the final competition, her coach tells her that he is quitting being her coach
as she quite reminds him of his daughter Denise who had died a while ago. But
he gives her the bestest tips along with a huge 5000 flashcards to study hard.
- You - you’ve got
it all,
Akeelah. You’ve got word construction down etymology, memorization techniques. What
you need to do now is just focus on the words.
- I can’t learn
5,000
new words all by myseIf.
- Oh, yes, you can.
- You’ve got a
brain
like a sponge. You just sit
down
and you study them.
- Dr. Larabee, I
swear,
I promise I won’t miss any more sessions and I’ll do whatever you say. You can’t
stop coaching me now.
- I toId Mr. WeIch
I’d get you
through the regionals and I’ve done that. Now, I don’t have anything else I can
teach you. You need to just take those words and study them and you’ll be all
right.
- This is why I was
at the mall.
Merry Christmas.
A dejected Akeelah now
loses all her hope of making it to the finals, without her coach to guide her
on her way!
At this juncture, her mother now
steps in confident, and encourages her to be cool, calm and confident and go
boldly ahead!
[Interestingly, in the initial stages, her
mom was all up against Akeelah participating in the Spell Bee event, in the
past; But now, she’s so happy with her daughter that she roots rocksolid for
her, encouraging her al the while!]
- You know, Akeelah,
you ain’t short
on people who want to help you. I bet if you just look around, you got 50,000
coaches. Starting with me.
Now, true to her mother’s words
of encouragement, all of a sudden, Akeelah is overwhelmed to find the whole
townsfolk encouraging her and cheering her up all the way!
Endearing in especial, is the
local drug dealer’s gesture towards Akeelah. He not only shares word that he
had once won a contest in grade school for writing a poem, but he also helps
her prepare for the contest in right earnest along with his rugged gang!
And, quite fortunately, before the
grand finale, she gets to reunite with her guru Larabee and together they all
go to Washington DC for the finals!
[Interestingly, Akeelah
isn’t even aware that it was Dr. Larabee who had paid for all four of her family’s
air tickets]
At the finals, Akeelah is an
instant hit with the crowds.
She’s cheered hard and long
by almost everyone in the audience.
And after everyone else is
eliminated in the finals, only Dylan Chiu and Akeelah remained in contention
for the top slot!
[Dylan Chiu, the Chinese American
boy, has had a previous bout with Akeelah at the Spell Bee too, when she
witnessed Chiu’s father mounting parental pressure on him to win at any cost!]
That makes up the last two on
the contest – Chiu and Akeelah - to clinch the decider!
And now they are given a
little break!
During this relax-break,
Akeelah overhears Chiu’s father pressurizing him in a very harsh manner, to win
the Champs by all means!
But right here, at this
very crucial juncture, in her do-or-die bout with the Bee, Akeelah tends to
empathise with the pathetic predicament of Chiu! Her heart goes out for him, as
he looked every bit nervous, and very much pressurized to perform!
Hence she resolves to lose
from then on, quite deliberately to help out her pal Chiu!
Ironically, even Chiu is so fed
up with his father’s tyrannical threats on him to win the Bee at any cost, that
he deliberately misspells his round, to express his strong resentment and
indignation!
Chiu then tells Akeelah that he
wants a fair competition at the Bee from then on!
That’s when the two decide
between themselves to spell every word given by the judges, until…
the two of them are finally
declared co-champions of the Spell Bee!!!
A film with such a positive
message bubbling through every shot and every scene!
I very very highly recommend this movie, especially for parents, school teachers and school principals, and obviously for school children as well! ;-)
In a society that’s so
obsessed with the term, ‘winning’, this film is such a feel-good movie that
shows us worlds out there outside the winners’ commune as well!
Added, the entire film
hinges on this little girl Akeelah who quite carries forward the entire movie
with such grace and elan!
A very motivational movie
especially for the younger generation, to help them understand that, there’s
much more to life and living than just winning!
And this positive attitude helps
her evolve beautifully from being a loner, to a person who’s loved, cherished
and admired by the entire community!
And her final lines
carry such a lovely feel to them –
Here goes Akeelah -
- That’s what I’m
talking
about! Where everything feels right?
Where you don’t
have
to worry about tomorrow or yesterday, but you feel safe and know you’re doing
the best you can?
There’s a word for that feeling. It’s called love.
L- O-V-E.
And it’s what I feel for all my family, and all
my coaches in my neighborhood, where I come from, where I learned how to spell.
We did it. Write it down a thousand times. The
Four-letter word that makes me cry
How I feel about it I can’t decide!
So, World, ready
or not, Here
I go! Searching for the answer! And I’m not gonna stop! TiII I find where it lingers
inside me!
Therein lies the beauty of
the ‘Bee!’
Akeelah and the
Bee!!