Movie Review - Akeelah and the Bee

I was feeling very tired a couple of Saturday nights ago and just wanted to watch a movie that would make me feel good – a feel good movie – so I checked out Netflix to see what it had to offer me and came across a movie called Akeelah and the Bee.  This movie was released in 2006 but I had never heard of it before, it must not have reached the cinema screens of the UK.

I wasn’t really sure what the movie was about, thought it may be about a Bee – you know the ones which buzz around and make honey! Well I was wrong. Akeelah and the Bee tells the story of an 11 year old girl called Akeelah Anderson (Keke Palmer) living in South Los Angeles, U.S.A.

Akeelah lives with her mother, her two older brothers, her sister and her niece – the daughter of her sister Kiona. Their dad died when Akeelah was six.

Akeelah attends Crenshaw Middle School, a predominantly black school where she skips classes with her friends as she doesn’t feel school is of any importance.  However Akeelah does excel at one thing – spelling – she is a fantastic speller and her teacher and principal suggest she signs up for the Crenshaw Spelling Bee which she ends up winning even if she was a reluctant participant at the start. A visiting professor Dr Joshua Larabee (Laurence Fishburn) sees potential in Akeelah and asks her to spell harder words - she correctly spells all but one of these words. On misspelling the word, girls in the school make fun of her and she runs out of the hall embarrassed and determined never to take part in a spelling bee again.

Dr Larabee tells her that the reason the girls made fun of her was because of jealousy – there were jealous that Akeelah excelled at something. However she is still put off by going any further down the road of competition and entering the National Spelling Bee. But in the end after persuasion by her principal and Dr Larabee, Akeelah decided to enter the competition.  Akeelah is coached for his by Dr Larabee who once was a Spelling Bee contestant many years ago.

On the day of the District Spelling Bee Akeelah misspells a word and is out of the competition, but in the end manages to qualify to the next round because another contestant was caught cheating as his mother was mouthing the correct spellings to him.

At the competition Akeelah is befriended by another contestant, Javier.  They strike up a friendship and he helps her through the competition process, encouraging her and reassuring her.  He even invites her to his birthday party which she attends.

Dylan, another of the competitors is also at the party and he has a dislike for Akeelah because she has come from nowhere - I think he saw her as a threat because of how far she had come in her first time of entering the competition.   Dylan has never won the National Spelling Bee but came second two years in a row. His dad is very strict on him and when Dylan gets beaten at scrabble by Akeelah, his dad is furious and shouts at him for being beaten by a ‘silly little black girl’.

Akeelah overhears this and it upsets her for two reasons - a) because she was so easily dismissed by this man and b) because he was pressuring his son so much.  Her mood gets worse she arrives home after the part because her Mum is angry at her and bans her from going to the National Bee because she was behind in her schoolwork and the school is making her do summer school to make up her grades.

Akeelah is mad at this as she wants to enter the Bee now despite her previous misgivings.  She goes behind her Mum’s back and continues to get coached for the Bee by Dr Larabee.  They attend the state Spelling Bee and in the middle of it Akeelah’s mum comes in and drags Akeelah off the stafe, shouting at her for lying and being disobedient to her mother and for putting some stupid Spelling Bee before her school work and her grades.

However unknown to her mother, Akeelah’s principal has signed off on Akeelah getting the extra coaching and tells her mother that this extracurricular activity is going towards credit for Akeelah’s schoolwork.  This information and Dr Larabee’s praise of Akeelah as the mother giving consent to Akeelah entering the Bee. So Akeelah goes back to the stage and manages to come third which advances her to the Scripps National Spelling Bee. 

Having witnessed Akeelah spelling really difficult words, her mum becomes proud of her and begins supporting her in the quest to become the Spelling Bee Champion of the United States.

After this Dr Larabee decides not to coach Akeelah anymore and through her disappointment, her Mum tells her it is OK as she has 50,000 coaches – meaning she has her family, her friends, her neighbours, her school friends etc. – she has many people to use to help her revise and Akeelah does just this.

Akeelah becomes a hero in her home town and has the support of all her school, her friends, her family and her neighbourhood.  When the Spelling Bee final is happening, the whole town can be seen gathered around their televisions watching and rooting for Akeelah.

I won’t tell you what happens next as I don’t want to spoil the ending for you.

I enjoyed this movie because it was very interesting seeing how the Spelling Bee captures the hearts and the attention of everyone in America – the Spelling Bee is a massive thing in America and it is great to see kids excelling at spelling. I think we need a Great British Spelling Bee.  Would motivate kids to learn.

Akeelah and the Bee is a movie about friendship, love, competition, pain, hope, fear of failure, loss, sacrifice, family and aspiration. I am sure you could find more themes within the movie.

It is a great story about a little girl who is lost but finds herself in her ability and talent of spelling.  Akeelah didn’t believe in herself but with encouragement from people around her Akeelah learnt the ability to believe in herself, which is something every little girl or boy needs to do.