Akeelah and the Bee (2006)
Directed by Doug Atchison
Written by Doug Atchison
Starring Keke Palmer, Laurence Fishburne, Angela Bassett, Curtis Armstrong
Release Date April 28th, 2006
Published April 27th, 2006
On the surface Akeelah and The Bee is the inspirational tale of a young girl overcoming the odds to make it to the national spelling bee. However, the real driving inspiration for the film is the continuing educational strife in the inner city that see's gifted students, like the one portrayed in the film, being left behind in schools ill suited to nurture their gifts.
Akeelah and The Bee may indeed play a little like an After School Special on steroids but its deeper message gives the film depth and the lead performances of stars Keke Palmer as Akeelah and Laurence Fishburne as her coach help Akeelah and the Bee become more than the sum of its plot. Akeelah Anderson (Palmer) is an 11 year old overachiever in the Crenshaw school district in Los Angeles. Having been skipped ahead a grade, she is expected to be the schools star in terms of academics. Unfortunately, Akeelah is floundering. She has been missing classes and is failing.
Things begin to turn around for Akeelah when her principle, Mr. Welch (Curtis Armstrong), forces her to enter the school spelling bee. Mr. Welch has invited his friend Dr. Joshua Larabee (Fishburne), a professor at USC and former spelling champion, to observe the bee and especially Akeelah. When Akeelah wins the bee she is offered the chance to train with Dr. Larabee in hopes of making it to the national spelling bee.
At home Akeelah is living with the loss of her father, he was killed when Akeelah was only 6 years old, whose love of words drives her own love of words. Her mother (Angela Bassett) is hard working but absent. Her oldest brother Devon (Lee Thompson Young) has joined the military while her other brother Terrence (Julito McCullom) has joined a gang. The specter of violence is inherent in the neighborhood though not prominent in the film.
The inadequacy of her school curriculum has limited Akeelah's ability to learn. Worse yet, the prevailing attitude of the people in her life, that education is a fixed, white man's game, has infected her own attitude. She must discover her love of learning or she will not succeed.
Akeelah and The Bee addresses a real hot button issue in inner city schools by directly addressing the prevailing attitude among African American youths that education is a white mans game. Many young African Americans have come to believe that the game is fixed against them in terms of education, so why bother with schools. This is not an unreasonable attitude. In fact, it's supported by how little financial support appears to be given to inner city schools as opposed to schools with predominantly white attendance.
That this attitude can prevail upon even someone as gifted as Akeelah is an issue that political and community leaders across the country, but particularly in the inner cities, must address and soon before another generation is lost. Every year it seems that the education budgets go up and yet inner city schools remain looking rundown and short on cash. Where is this money going and why isn't more money the answer as so many conservative critics have preached.
Akeelah and the Bee doesn't dig quite that deep into this issue. The requirements of mainstream filmmaking requires that the plot stay closer to its characters and their personal stories rather than becoming a documentary. The films accomplishment is raising the issue for you and I and everyone else to address and deal with..
Laurence Fishburne's performance as Dr. Larabee is a return to form for him after drifting through the Matrix sequels and Biker Boyz, simply picking up paychecks. His arrogant, authoritative performance, softened by Keke Palmer's Akeelah, captures the complex emotions of a man who has succeeded in the face of similar, if not more difficult circumstances than Akeelah. I call the character arrogant because he is, but it is the kind arrogance that one earns through achievement. Some people simply have the right to be a little arrogant and that is part of Fishburne's complicated and heavily shaded performance.
Fishburne's performance early in the film is so good that the backstory he is saddled with proves unnecessary in making this character, and the dramatic choices he makes later in the film, work. The backstory, I'm sure, was meant to further humanize Dr. Larabee but because it is so contrived and is used as such an obvious dramatic device it plays far too melodramatic.
The real key to Fishburne's performance may just be the performance of his co-star, 13 year old Keke Palmer. Giving a performance that is easily comparable to Keisha Castle Hughes Oscar nominated performance in Whale Rider, Palmer nails Akeelah's initial hopelessness and sadness as well as her feistiness and innate gifts. Akeelah is a sweetheart character but she is not above childish behavior and petulance and Palmer combines these traits into a fully formed young character.
Palmer and Fishburne develop terrific chemistry that carries us over many if not all of the films minor structural problems, including Fishburne's unfortunate backstory and a stretch of the picture that gets a little too into the uplifting vibe of a TV movie. The montage sequence of Akeelah inspiring her entire neighborhood is more than a little played out.
I think I may have made Akeelah and The Bee out to be heavier than it really is. Writer-director Doug Atchison is not merely using this film to preach, he leaves plenty on the screen for entertainment purposes. For instance, Akeelah gets a boyfriend, Roman (George Hornedo), who she meets along the way to the national spelling bee. The pre-teen romance is very charming and not overdone.
Also the films final minutes at the national spelling are so well put together that there is real drama. The scenes are perfectly paced and develop in surprisingly suspenseful manner. Akeelah and the Bee is far from perfect but as a conversation starter on very important issues and as an entertaining character piece, the film is more than worth the price of admission.
On a side note, Akeelah and the Bee is the first film from the Starbucks Film company. Yes that Starbucks, the coffee people. It is a little disconcerting when you first see that Starbucks logo pop up in the opening credits but no one in the film is seen drinking Starbucks coffee so the synergy is thankfully not blatant. It is nice to see a major corporation putting its cash to good use and not merely crafting a film as an ad for their product.
