‘Spellbound’ captures bee to the letter

Your heart completely goes out to the eight young competitors in “Spellbound,” it really does. They’re so filled with hope and belief, so industrious in wonderfully individual ways in their quest to win the National Spelling Bee, that wishing each and every one of them could triumph becomes inevitable. And maybe, this irresistible Oscar-nominated documentary suggests, they already have.

These eight were part of a group of 249 who came out of some 9,000 school and city bees to qualify for 1999’s Washington, D.C., finals. While a contest where the aim is correctly spelling words like “lycanthrope” and “cephalalgia” may not sound compelling or even particularly humane, director Jeff Blitz, producer Sean Welch (who together served as the film’s camera and sound crew) and editor Yana Gorskaya prove to us that it is.

Blitz and Welch spent a good deal of time selecting the kids they would focus on, a process that pays off beautifully. The group settled on is so engaging and so diverse, from different economic strata, ethnic backgrounds, family structures and areas of the country, that they effectively -- and intentionally -- provide a vibrant cross-section of America today.

The competitors highlighted are uniformly bright kids simply in love with big words for their own sake. The still-stunned parents of Nupur Lala, for instance, remember her at age 2 1/2 saying “I have no opportunities” before she knew the meaning of the word. Though there are exceptions, most of the parents, far from being whip-cracking stage managers, are rather astonished at offspring willing to chain themselves to dictionaries for hours a day to learn the really hard words.

Just as important, the other thing these kids have in common is a charming inability to be other than themselves. Old enough to spell well but too young to have mastered dissembling or guile, they can’t hide their feelings, can’t disguise who they are, and, thanks to the genuine rapport the filmmakers achieved with them, they truly open their lives and thoughts to the camera.

One of “Spellbound’s” most remarkable contestants is the one we are introduced to first, Angela Arenivar of tiny Perryton, Texas. Her parents were illegal immigrants from Mexico who’ve never learned to speak much English; her father likes to joke that the cattle he takes care of don’t speak it either. The academic achievement that spelling bee prowess represents, says Angela’s brother, “is what he came here for.” To see Angela’s parents being proud to the point of tears is what we come to the movies for too.

What makes “Spellbound” such an appealing film is that all the other contestants have involving stories to tell as well. For instance:

* Ashley White, a sunny African American child being raised by a single mother in Washington, D.C., likes to talk about her life as being “like a movie. I go through trials and tribulations, and then I finally overcome”;

* Neil Kadakia, the son of a prosperous San Clemente couple, attacks the national bee like a military invasion, making use of computer programs, multiple coaches and, reportedly, the prayers of recruited well-wishers in his parents’ ancestral Indian home;

* Harry Altman, a braces-wearing baby stand-up comic from Glen Rock, N.J., is a compulsive wisecracker given to stream-of-consciousness conversations with himself as he tries to puzzle out words. “I guess,” he says in his only stab at understatement, “you could call me talkative.”

These kids and their peers are so involving that half of “Spellbound’s” length is legitimately taken up getting acquainted with them. Then everyone goes to Washington and the finals, and the tension really kicks in.

Because we’ve come to know these kids and appreciate their honesty, it’s especially involving to see all the emotions -- from joy and relief to stunned disbelief -- come tumbling across their faces. Though results will not be given away here, enough of the “Spellbound Eight” go far enough to add extra interest to the narrative, and director Blitz, whose favorite childhood film was the Agatha Christie-based “And Then There Were None,” does an excellent job of conveying the one-strike-and-you’re-out nature of the competition.

Though the National Spelling Bee has, given the tension involved, been understandably characterized as “a different form of child abuse” by a speller’s parent, “Spellbound” is quite clear and unapologetic about the value in what might seem a valueless exercise.

For these contestants are, for the most part, not just memorizing; they are learning meanings, getting familiar with other root languages and, most important of all, participating in an arena where hard work and intelligence pay off even if, obviously, they can’t ensure victory.

At the end of the day, these children all seem better for the effort they put into the competition, as we are better for watching what the experience did for them. At a time when so many in this country are at odds about what represents America at its best, it’s refreshing and then some to see a film that everyone can agree is an example of exactly that.

*

‘Spellbound’

MPAA rating: G

Times guidelines: No bad words.

In associaton with HBO/Cinemax Documentary Films, released by Thinkfilm. Director Jeff Blitz. Producers Jeff Blitz, Sean Welch. Cinematographer Jeff Blitz. Editor Yana Gorskaya. Sound Sean Welch. Music Daniel Hulsizer. Running time: 1 hour, 36 minutes.

In limited release.