AKEELAH AND THE BEE (A-)
Starring Keke Palmer, Laurence Fishburne, and Angela Bassett. Directed by Doug Atchison.

I write the way most people eat or breathe. I majored in English. I read The Elements of Style from cover to cover. Word Origins is my favorite category on Jeopaardy!, even though I suck at it. And there’s a folder among my internet bookmarks labeled “Words to Know,” which includes the Merriam-Webster definitions of such SAT-worthy words as “alacrity,” “opprobrium,” and “sycophant.” The power of words is something I have always appreciated, and that love of language was only reinforced by Akeelah and the Bee, an inspirational film, and I only use that word when I really mean it.

One thing I especially admired was the film’s attention to the socioeconomic factors that shape Akeelah’s life. Akeelah (Keke Palmer) is a gifted student who we learn was skipped a grade when she was younger. She effortlessly aces spelling tests without studying, and her late father instilled in her a love for words during games of Scrabble. However, her grades are inadequate; her classes don’t challenge her, so she often skips them. She goes to a school where intelligence is valued less than hip-hop culture, which as often as not is an enemy of the English language. And her school is underfunded, unable to afford bathroom stall doors, let alone a Latin class.

Her mother (Angel Basset) struggles. She works long hours to support her children. She struggles to keep her wayward younger son from dying on the streets, so she predictably keeps Akeelah on a short leash. She can hardly afford to shuttle her daughter to study sessions in other schools, and her world-weary pragmatism keeps her from understanding her daughter’s desire to compete in a “game,” as she describes the spelling bees.

Contrast these images with the posh environment of the suburban school where Akeelah encounters spellers with fewer obstacles: they have parents who have the time to coach them and SUVs to transport them, schools with advanced classes, and — is that a microscope in that science classroom!? Her friend lives in a house where his journalist father has a study full of books and a telescope. This is a world much more conducive to learning and achievement, and they can probably afford doors for their bathroom stalls — heck, they can probably afford revolving doors and a bidet.

Akeelah is coached by Dr. Larabee (Laurence Fishburne), a stern English professor with an abiding respect for language and those who command it. He instructs Akeelah to read essays by W.E.B. DuBois; he asks that she not only memorize words, but appreciate how they are used and shaped and developed. He also harbors a secret from his past, which explains his fondness for Akeelah but doesn’t contribute much to the film. David Mamet had a theory of storytelling called “The Death of My Cat,” and it describes a scene in which a supporting character explains an experience or a trauma from his life, but why? Mamet deems them unnecessary, and Larabee’s subplot demonstrates why: the film takes time away from Akeelah to explain the Larabee character, but it feels obligatory, perfunctory, like writer/director Doug Atchison thinks that Larabee needs such a personal revelation to be a complete character, but Fishburne’s performance is soulful enough not to need the extraneous information.

Akeelah’s mother also has traumas from her past, but hers affect and reflect Akeelah directly. They contribute to the core story, so they have a greater impact.

There’s another character of note, an uptight speller named Dylan (Sean Michael) who has finished second in the national spelling bee twice, but hasn’t won. His father (Tzi Ma) is a near caricature: he is so stern and unwaveringly clenched that his presence is almost comic, but both characters work anyway. Dylan never comes off as a flat villain. While Akeelah and Javier laugh and play, he is serious and joyless; if he has read any literature to enhance his vocabulary, it was more likely written by Machiavelli than DuBois. He is funny, but also sympathetic, and his father, though horrid, is also rather pitiful: “He’s never won anything in his life,” we’re told.

I loved this film more than I expected to. It’s unabashedly sentimental, and sentimentality often veers into unbearable saccharine, but Akeelah earns it. It cares as much about the words it speaks as it does about its feel-good underdog story. It’s smart and perceptive about the way class influences education. And its characters are believable and involving. This is a very, very good film.