The Story:

Eleven-year-old Akeelah Anderson (Palmer) gets perfect scores on her spelling tests without studying for them. She’s an all-around gifted student, but in an under-funded, dilapidated middle school in Crenshaw, Akeelah is bored and tormented by her peers for being smart. It’s the age-old story: she’s bright, but not being challenged. She’s not turning in assignments and constantly skips class.

When Akeelah’s principal (Armstrong) invites her to participate in the school’s inaugural spelling bee, she is reluctant. Akeelah views spelling bees as the domain of white folks, not something for a black girl from South Los Angeles. All a spelling bee can do for Akeelah is give the school bullies another reason to harass her. But with detention for all those missed classes hanging over her head, Akeelah realizes the principal isn’t asking her to participate in the school bee—he’s telling her.

Akeelah easily wins the school bee and becomes eligible to advance to successive rounds, vying for a coveted spot at the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Her principal’s college buddy, Dr. Larabee (Fishburne) witnesses Akeelah’s spelling prowess and believes the girl has a shot at winning the whole shebang. An English professor and former National Bee finalist, Dr. Larabee offers to coach Akeelah.

Lacking Morpheus’s steez and sex appeal, Fishburne’s Dr. Larabee is bookish and refined without being condescending or unapproachable. Still, he and Akeelah experience a bit of culture clash when Akeelah accepts his coaching offer. Initially, Akeelah stands her ghetto-ground, chafing at Dr. Larabee’s insistence that she not use words like “ain’t” and “gonna.” Eventually though, Akeelah realizes she needs help if she is to continue her winning streak. She learns too that Dr. Larabee believes in her, and more importantly, that he wants her to believe in herself and stopping downplaying her intellectual gifts.

Akeelah becomes single-minded about the bee, knowing that she is making her Scrabble-loving daddy (now deceased) proud. By contrast, Akeelah’s overworked, grieving mother (Bassett) is none too pleased with Akeelah’s fixation on the bee, and her reasons go far deeper than not wanting Akeelah to travel into white neighborhoods for bee-related activities. Despite her mother’s disapproval, Akeelah forges ahead.

The astute Dr. Larabee helps Akeelah develop strategies for learning words, strategies which build upon her natural gifts. But when Akeelah spells her way to the National Spelling Bee, she learns that success rests in her own hands, not Dr. Larabee’s.

As word of Akeelah’s pending trip to Washington, DC spreads, everyone from her wannabe-thug brother (Young) to the mailman rallies behind her. This wouldn’t be South LA without gang-bangers, but even they catch Akeelah Fever. With all of Crenshaw rooting for her, Akeelah heads to the National Bee.

Akeelah and the Bee is a quintessential feel-good movie (with a few twists), but I couldn’t have guessed the ending. The filmmakers are to be commended for taking a story so ripe for sermonizing, and doing it justice instead with subtlety and good performances from a capable cast. An accessible story featuring black characters, with depth and appeal across age and color, is a too-rare gem in current cinema.

It took two years to raise the $6M needed to make this film. The story, while refreshing, was not a guaranteed moneymaker. In an interview*, Laurence Fishburne (also one of the film’s producer) lamented that “old social disease…Do mainstream crowds want to watch a movie about good things happening in black neighborhoods? Do black audiences want to see a little [black] girl doing something in a white world?”

Director Doug Atchison added: “If you see African-American kids striving to do something in the movies, it’s sports or singing or dancing. Here, we’re engaging kids on their intellect. That, you don’t see. These lies about black inferiority have been seeping into cinema, and that seeps into our kids. As a filmmaker, you can dig into these issues, but you have to be subtle.”

Well, mission accomplished.

On the subject of subtlety, I found Dr. Larabee’s character to be nicely understated. He maintains a garden, but he’s not given that endangered species “Ooooh, look! A black man GARDENING!” treatment. Gardening simply fits Dr. Larabee character. However, we later learn that Dr. Larabee’s garden represents more than meets the eye.

File under “Some Minor Details”:

1. Parents, be warned: in Akeelah, there was more cursing than I expected, more than just “damn”, but not gratuitous, nor did it detract from the movie.
2. In the scenes Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett shared, I didn’t think once about Ike and Tina. Kudos to them!
3. With its foray from frappuchino into films, Starbucks Entertainment’s makes an impressive movie promotion debut with Akeelah. The coffee giant promoted the low-budget film in exchange for an undisclosed share of all revenue.

File under “Picky, picky, picky”:

Maybe my own ‘hood upbringing has me jaded, but Derrick-T (My Name is Earl’s Eddie Steeples) was the least intimidating-looking gangsta I’ve ever seen. He looked liked high as a kite, but not threatening in the least. His hair (worn nice ‘n natural) posed a threat to a small-toothed comb, but that was about it.

Bottom Line

I loved this movie! The premise made it a must-see, but the story and fine acting delivered on the promise of the premise. My audience cheered throughout this movie and applauded at the end. I have been waiting for a film like this, one that affirms my daughters, and all black children. My seven-year-old attended the screening with me, and she was riveted the entire time. Our local black music radio station sponsored the screening and busloads of teens and pre-teens, black and white, attended. The film held everyone’s attention--aside from one noisy little hometraining-deficient bunch to my left (yeah, I played the role of “Shhh!” lady).

The biggest ringing endorsement I can give Akeelah is this: As soon as we got in the car after the movie, my daughter said, “Mom. Gimme a word,” and we spelled all the way home.

*“Fishburne says ‘Akeelah’ touches on risky themes” by John Hayes, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 30, 2006