Ridiculously enough, her mistake during the final round is a word so glaringly out of place (at the national spelling bee) that it’s laughable. Maybe it’s to make it glaringly obvious to the audience and to her father that she threw the spelling bee, but to be given “origami” as a tiebreaker when words like “autochthonous” are the norm?

It’s just enough to make you laugh out loud incredulously.

And somehow, her loss brings the family together; somehow it reconciles the growing rift between father and son; somehow her mother resurfaces from her abnormal pysch episode. Somehow, everything is wrapped up and presumably peachy again.

Please.

Cosmic and grandiose, Bee Season leaves questions unanswered and a plot thread or two unexplained. For the curious, pass on the movie and pick up the novella.

That’s what I’ll be doing.

Movie Grade: C

Synopsis:

Eliza Naumann (Flora Cross) has no reason to believe she is anything but ordinary. Her father Saul (Richard Gere), a beloved university professor, dotes on her talented elder brother Aaron (Max Minghella). Her scientist mother, Miriam (Juliette Binoche), seems consumed by her career. When a spelling bee threatens to reaffirm her mediocrity, Eliza amazes everyone: she wins. Her newfound gift garners an invitation not only to the national competition, but an entrée into the world of words and Jewish mysticism that have so long captivated her father's imagination. But Eliza's unexpected success hurls the Naumann family dynamic into a tailspin, long-held secrets emerge and she is forced to depend upon her own divination to hold the family together.